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I took a break from Pinterest but now that it is almost Thanksgiving I am looking back over all those fun craft ideas I pinned for the Holidays. We are about to have our first holiday season in our brand new house and I am really excited to decorate. Pinterest is where I store all my ideas for what to make.

If you are interested, follow me on Pinterest!

Visit Randi's profile on Pinterest.

I also have two boards that I use to store teaching ideas. One for math ideas and one for general teaching ideas.

Follow Randi's board Math on Pinterest.

Follow Randi's board Teaching on Pinterest.

Anchor Charts

I have been making Anchor Charts this weekend. I realize that it might me a little late in the year, but I can always use them again. I tried to make them a bit interactive. It might help the students think a bit while looking at them. 

I have a Pinterest board called Anchor Charts where I've been collecting example for a while. You can check it out here.

Things to Do in My Classroom

I have slowly but surely been trying the ideas on Pinterest that I have found.I am hoping that I can be more organized and in turn teach the students to be more organized. Isn't it amazing how students adapt to the room? I have noticed that the teachers who are really organized can get students to be more organized themselves. But the same student can go into another teacher's room and be completely different.

They are impressionable

I need a poster like this for my room. It comes from Middle School Math Rules Our school sets aside 10 minutes for dismissal procedures at the end of the day, and the way the buses work it can sometime be 20 minutes. To me, that is 15 minutes a day wasted, about 1 hour a week, 4 hours a month...  you get the picture. Training students in a procedure like this would mean more teaching time.

I love the Science Notebooking blog. There are so many great ideas there. I love the idea of putting colored duct tape on the notebooks at the beginning of the year. This past year I used garage sale stickers on the bindings to separate each classes' notebook. This year, I will have 6 different sets of notebooks. Science and Social Studies notebooks for each class.

This is also from the Science Notebooking Blog. I love the idea of putting up wall posters for each unit studied. The walls in our hallways can be pretty bare and kids walk by them everyday. Sometimes they wait in line outside. Wouldn't it be great to have them looking at something while they are our there?

And this is just adorable.(Cannot find where it originally came from.) Our district tries to support students thinking about college and career choices early on. This past year we had a field trip to a college campus and spent some time exploring other universities around Texas.

I would like to take pictures at the beginning and end of the year and see how they changed. My goal is to see more science based careers, especially from the girls.

To Make Before School Starts

...Or Stuff I Saw on Pinterest and Really Want.

I have seen these buttons several place, but most recently on Life is Better Messy Anyways. It is a fun way to have students brag/celebrate how hard they worked. And since I am sure few students in my classes talk about school to their parents, it would be a good way to start a conversation at home. 

I am not sure where these exact flip charts came from, but the idea circulated around my campus this past year. I never got around to making them, but I would love to cut down on the Miss, Miss, Miss when someone needs help. 

This is hilarious to me. I would love to have a large bathroom pass that says this. I'll need to figure it out!

I've seen this everywhere to, and unfortunately I can't find where this exact one belongs. (If it is yours let me know and I'll link it.) I think it started about as a tackle box from Lowe's and now it is a wonderful organization toll. Which I need desperately. The inside of my desk is almost as bad as the outside. (But not as bad.)

Scratch-Off Cards

I saw this tutorial and this tutorial on Pinterest last summer and loved it. When I introduced it to my students, they loved it also. 

Last year I had two classes and on most days I gave at least one ticket out for each class. I looked for students who had followed all of the classroom expectations, including being engaged in learning. I told them sitting there being quiet was not always enough. They needed to answer questions, offer responses, and contribute ideas to our lesson. 

The tutorial says to use contact paper but I used Scotch tape instead. 

I tried to stick to rewards that didn't cost any money. Who has that to spend?

• 5 minutes extra recess for the class
• Choose a song to listen to at the end of the day
• Gum at the end of the day
• Use markers for the day
• Sit in teacher's chair for the day
• Swap seats for the day
• Use markers for the day
• Sit at the teacher's desk for the day
• Eat lunch with Mrs. Stowe and a friend
• Homework Extension (I don't like Homework Passes)
• Five points extra on a test
• Double a Daily Grade
• Draw on Whiteboard at the end of the day

The students really looked forward to seeing who got the ticket every day. For my students who had difficulty following classroom expectations, I would wait until a day they seemed to be more on-task. Then I approached them and offered them the ticket if they could continue the rest of the period. Usually they worked it out the rest of the class.