3 Fun Name Activities to Build a Classroom Community

If it's back-to-school time for you, or if you're at least THINKING about being back to school, you're probably busy planning ways to build up your classroom community!

These fun interactive activities are perfect to practice names and integrate skills across the curriculum. 

Your students will have fun as they get to know one another, and you will begin creating a positive classroom environment from Day 1. It's a win-win!

Here are 3 of my favorite Name Activities to use with your class:

1. "EVERYBODY HAS A NAME" (LITERACY)

We love to sing "Everybody Has a Name!"

Adding this activity into your daily routine at the beginning of the school year will make all the difference when it comes to giving each one of your students a sense of belonging.

You can download this activity in my Free Resource Library HERE!

2. A MY NAME IS ALICE MORNING MEETING GREETING (SOCIAL/EMOTIONAL LEARNING)

This fun Morning Meeting activity integrates SEL with Language Arts. Students will be having so much fun, that they won't even realize you snuck in a mini-lesson about verbs and alliteration!

As students are greeted around the circle (or with a partner - however you want to set it up!) they would say:

"A my name is _____. I like to _____."

Using the first letter of their names, students should name an activity they like to do that matches that letter. 

For example:

"B my name is Brooke and I like to bake."

"C my name is Charlie and I like to collect."

The best part is, that students will have follow-up questions that will further allow them to make connections. ("What do you like to bake?" Brownies! "What do you like to collect?" Seashells!).

There are many variations you can do with this activity.

For example, instead of using verbs, you can encourage students to think of an adjective that describes them! The possibilities are endless as students celebrate their names in a fun, interactive way.

3. NUMBERS IN OUR NAMES (MATH)

This interactive activity is meant to be used with the mentor text Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes.

In this activity, students collect data and count the letters in each of their classmates' names! Then, students tally, graph, and interpret the data.

This activity is part of my complete Chrysanthemum Literacy & Math Activities collection. Fun!

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What are some of your favorite ways to have fun with names as you build a classroom community? I'd love to know!

Happy teaching,

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Work on Writing Choices in the Elementary Classroom... A Must Have Center!

The Writing Center is my favorite place in our classroom.

Why? "Work on Writing" is a place where students can practice writing every single day!

I'd love to take you through my Work on Writing center, and explain a little bit about the choices students have. PS - If you're wondering about the structure of when and how students visit Work on Writing, visit this blog post to learn more.

For now, let's dive into Work on Writing!

Here is what my Work on Writing center looks like:

THE SETUP

- The drawer set is from Michaels. Teacher tip: remove the knobs for easy labeling!

- Speaking of labeling, the drawer labels are from The Organised Teacher over on TPT. They are editable, and F-R-E-E!

- Thematic Vocabulary Cards are from Cara Carroll over on TPT.

- I used clear frames from Amazon to display my "Work on Writing" center sign. This helps provide a clear visual of what and where the Work on Writing center is throughout the year.

You can download your free sign HERE if you'd like!

In my Work on Writing Center, I include seven choices: Let's go through them together!

PICK AND WRITE

This activity comes along with Cara's Thematic Vocabulary Cards. The students practice writing sentences featuring any of the vocabulary words displayed in the writing center! This option is great for working on sentence structure, capitalization, and punctuation.

DRAW AND LABEL

More suited for beginning writers, this writing choice ALSO comes along with the Thematic Vocabulary Cards! 

FREE WRITE

This is exactly what it sounds like! Students are free to write about whatever interests them. For those students who may have writers block (I was this kid!), I LOVE the monthly prompts from Heidi and Emily over at Second Story Window.

I typed out the prompts, and stuck them on fun cutouts that you can find at Dollar Tree, or any other teaching store! These prompts are switched out every month.

HOW TO

How To Writing is so much fun for students, because they get to be the expert on writing out steps for how to do something they're great at. Students also practice important learning concepts of using temporal words (first, next, then...), and being descriptive while using short, sequential steps!

RECIPE

Writing recipes allow for students to be both creative and organized! They need to provide a list of ingredients, as well as step-by-step directions for how to make their delicious dish. Yum!

LETTER

The parts and purpose of a Friendly Letter is a must-do lesson to introduce this center! One of the most important teaching points is why we write friendly letters, and who we write letters to (Family members, relatives, people we don't see that often...). This helps from friendly letters turning the corner and becoming "notes" that students just write to one another. 😉

LIST

We all make lists! This writing center is my very favorite. To introduce this center, we talk about when and why people might make lists. Grocery lists! Lists to remember tasks! You name it. Much like the thematic vocabulary cards, I display a seasonal collection of List Writing Options in our Writing Center.

List writing is SO beneficial for students. It helps them develop an awareness of spelling patterns, expand vocabulary, and connect concepts across the curriculum!

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If these Work on Writing ideas are something you'd like to incorporate in your classroom, you check out this collection of centers in my TpT store!

The List Writing part of this collection just got a HUGE update! You can now have access to 120 List Writing Prompts that can be used all year long.

Try September and October for FREE!

Click HERE to download your free September and October List Writing Prompts.

Wishing you happy writing moments to come!

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Classroom Management for Your Best Morning Meeting Share Time

I know they say never say never.

BUT.... Morning Meeting is one component of our day in the classroom that I will never, ever skip.

Why? It truly is (one of the) ways to build a strong classroom community.

Beginning each day with a purposeful time to practice important listening & communication skills is so very important.

The four components of Morning Meeting I include are:

• Greeting
• Share
• Activity
• Morning Message

All of these parts cohesively work together in order to create a classroom environment that is inclusive, safe, and welcoming.

When we Greet one another, we practice eye contact and kind ways to say "good morning." When we have our Activity, our bodies are up and moving as we develop sportsmanship and teamwork. We conclude with a Morning Message that incorporates shared reading, fluency, and a sense of building classroom routines.

Smack dab in the middle is our Share.

With one topic to focus on, Share time is for exactly what it sounds like: Sharing ideas about the particular focus for that day. It's another fabulous opportunity to develop whole body listening skills, and for your students to get to know one another.

Here's the thing.

This is where if you're not too careful, things can get really long really fast.

I have 21 students in my class. Every student sharing every day, especially with a more involved question that requires attentive listening, like "what does being a good friend look like?" will start off GREAT, but then lend itself to moments like...

• "I'm hungry!"
• "Hey, there's a squirrel outside the window!"
• Along with a case of the wiggles SO severe that in a blink, the attention span of your students is officially over.

Has this ever happened to me?

YOU BET.

So, if you're anything like me, and looking for a way to make sure that your Morning Meeting Share time stays manageable, purposeful, and FUN, I've got a solution for you.

Use a Share Sign Up!

INTRODUCE THE TOPIC

Depending on how your week is going, you can end the week by introducing the share topic for the following week! Or, you can introduce the share topic for the current week at the very beginning of that same week. You can encourage your students to think about the question as it pertains to their lives!

SIGN UP FOR A DAY TO SHARE

You can do this however works best for your classroom! Perhaps you call students by tables, rows, or individual desks. To ensure that the same students to not always sign up for the very beginning of the week, switch up the order in which they sign up.

EVERYONE GETS A TURN

Reassure your students that no matter which day they sign up for, everyone will get a turn to share. Let them know how excited you are to hear your thoughts!

ULTIMATELY...

A Share Sign Up allows for your students to share their ideas while also doing their best active listening. Since you're sharing on the same topic all week, it'll cut down a bit on your Morning Meeting prep, too. It's a win-win!

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If a Share Sign Up is something you'd like to use in your classroom, you can download it HERE.

Oh! and, if you're looking for Morning Meeting 101, I highly recommend taking a look at Responsive Classroom and The Morning Meeting Book. It's one I pull out year after year.

                      

Wishing you joyful Morning Meetings and super share times to come!

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Easy to Follow Steps for Setting Up Classroom Rules and Expectations

My top tip for heading back to school is to spend the first six weeks of school building your classroom community.

During these six weeks, usually on the second or third day of school, is the day when classroom rules and expectations are created.

In order for this to be successful, make it a COLLABORATIVE PROCESS!

Here's what this looks like in my classroom:

FIRST:

I gather my students in our meeting area. I open the discussion by explaining that we'll work together to create rules for our classroom.

We have a brief chat about what rules are, and why they are important.

These questions allow me to tap into your students prior knowledge and lead into the rule creation process.

NEXT:

I have my students simply brainstorm rules they think are important to follow in their classroom. I'll record every. single. one. down.

We end up with quite a list, but that's okay! The important thing is that all students are feeling heard, and their ideas are being recorded.

THEN:

After we have our mega list and the ideas start to slow down, here's where the true facilitation comes in on my end.

I begin grouping similar ideas together with the end goal of creating five simply worded classroom rules in mind.

The conversation goes something like this:

Me: "Wow, these are a lot of really important expectations! We have such a great list here that it could be hard to remember all of them. I notice that we have no running, use scissors the right way, and no jumping in the classroom. Those all sound like being... oh, what's that really important word that starts with an 's'..."

The students readily jump in to help me "remember" this word. 😉  Excitedly, I get exclaims of "Be SAFE!"

FINALLY:

The process of grouping similar ideas together continues, until our list looks something like this.

The important thing to note is that the simply worded expectations are framed with positive language. Beginning each rule with "Be..." is a great way to do this.

• Be Safe.
• Be Respectful.
• Be Responsible.
• Be Kind.
• Be Positive.

Ultimately, am I deciding on the five classroom rules? Yes. Do my students have a role in creating them? Yes.

By making the creation of rules a collaborative process, students will have a deeper understanding of what "being safe" looks like, or what "being respectful" sounds like.

The year kicks off with my students taking ownership of their space and caring for their community!

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You'll find these five rules, plus EDITABLE options in my TpT store!

After your list of classroom rules is created and finalized, you can use these brightly colored posters to display them in your classroom!

With editable options, you'll be able to best meet the needs of your students.

Happy community building!

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Managing Your Classroom Library... In the Age of COVID!

Happy September, friends!

I hope all is well and that you're easing into somewhat of a school-year routine.

We've finished our first two "weeks" of school here in Connecticut (one 3-day week and one 4-day week), and today, we dove into our first 5-day week. Copious amount of prayers, chocolate, wine, good thoughts, or any combination of the above are accepted! I'm right there with you, teachers. You're all superstars.

We are in-person teaching 5 days a week. At the same time, we're posting lessons online for our remote learners and for the event that we have to go fully online. It's A LOT. Seeing the kids every day is what's getting us through!

One aspect of our "new normal" in the classroom that has made me put my thinking cap on is discovering how to run a fully functional classroom library with little to no shared supplies.

After learning an important foundation lesson, how to choose a "good fit book," we had the grand opening of our classroom library as per usual! The students got to choose eight books to keep in their book boxes for the week. These books will be used during our dedicated "Read to Self" time every day.

These student look-a-like book box labels from Learning in Wonderland are the cutest, right?!

Our classes have been split into two cohorts that alternate the second grade classrooms each week. So, we only have 9 kids in our classrooms each week. In coordination to what our school health officials have advised, my co-teacher and I are keeping a selection of books with specific cohorts.

Back to book shopping, and running a classroom library in the age of COVID!

For morning work each Monday, the students shop for eight new books. These books stay in their book boxes for Read to Self all week, until the end of the week.

This is where the new classroom library star comes in... our Book Quarantine bin!

On the last day of the week, the second graders place their books in the Book Quarantine bin. Here, these well-loved books will sit for one week before they're placed back in our classroom library.

Before you know it, these well-rested books will be germ-free and ready to go back into the rotation for book shopping.

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If this is something you think would work in your classroom, I'd be so thrilled! You can download your very own labels for free HERE (choose between two different styles, each with three different sizes)!

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I'd love to hear all about how you're doing! Are you teaching in-person, online, or hybrid?

We're all in this together!

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An Easy Guide to DIGITAL Classroom Newsletters & CLICKABLE PDFs!

I'm going to be honest...

I am much more of a paper person than a digital person. There. I said it.

Colored ink, bright card stock, it's all so much fun!

However, I have an exception to my "paper over digital" preference... and that exception is CLASS NEWSLETTERS.

Sending home newsletters is so important! Your class families get to read all about what is going on in your classroom, and they're informed about upcoming events. All great stuff!

Here's the thing. More often than not, paper newsletters and related forms end up buried on the bottom of backpacks, stuffed in the back of desks, or crumpled under the seat on the bus... never to be seen again.

I have the perfect solution for you! Send your newsletters home DIGITALLY using clickable PDFs.

Along with the information actually getting to your class families, here are a few of the reasons why I LOVE clickable PDFs!

• They're super user-friendly, and easy to create.

• You can email them as an attachment, upload to Google Classroom, and a bunch of other platforms!

• You can include many different resources in ONE spot.

Let's dive into it! Here is how you can create PDFs that have "clickable" links.

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I use PowerPoint to create most of my resources, including my newsletters!

First, find the text that you want to link to the other website or document.

Tip: It's helpful to change the color in order to make it more noticeable. Simply highlight the text, and change to whichever bright color you like! Then, click OK.

After you've changed the color of your text, you'll want to save your document as a PDF. Click File, and drop down to Save As.

Name the document whatever you would like, and save it to a place on your computer where it will be easy to find! Then, next to File Format, choose PDF.

Now, you're ready to open your document as a PDF and embed your link!

Head over to your Google Drive, and find the document you want to link to from your PDF. 

In this case, I want to attach a link to a "Getting to Know Your Child" Back to School form that's located in my Google Drive.

In the upper right-hand corner, click on the three vertical dots. Then, drop down to Share.

In order to be able to add the link to your PDF, you'll need to look under Get Link. So anyone you send the PDF is able to open the link, you'll want to change the sharing permissions from "Restricted" to "Anyone with the link."

In order to do this, click "Change to anyone with the link."

Now's the time to copy and paste it into your PDF!

Click Copy link from the document in your Google Drive.

I use Adobe Acrobat in order to edit PDFs.

Open your saved PDF from your computer, and it will look something like this. Find the text that you want to add a link to, and highlight it.

The text that you've highlighted will be where the link is embedded into.

RIGHT CLICK, and choose Create Link...

Before you paste in your link to the document from your Google Drive, you can choose how the text will look on the PDF.

If you'd like to leave it how it looks (no border around your text), make sure that Invisible Rectangle is selected next to Link Type. I recommend this!

Then, click Next.

Now, paste the link from your Google Drive!

Click OK.

You've embedded the link right into your PDF. Now, when you hover over the text you want to link to your Google Drive, you'll be able to click on it, and it'll lead you right there!

Presto! You're ready to SAVE your PDF, and send it out. The best part is, you can send it as an email attachment, upload it to Google Classroom, your Google Drive, or whichever platform works best for you, your students, and their families!

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If you're interested, check out my last blog post about things I include in each & every newsletter to efficiently maximize home/school communication.

You can download these EDITABLE Weekly & Monthly Classroom Newsletters here!

Do you have any awesome digital teaching tips? I'd love to hear about them!

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How To Create The Ultimate Classroom Newsletter

The start of a new school year is exciting for so many reasons. Above all, your classroom is refreshed and ready to welcome a new bunch of eager learners. You have incredible lessons planned, and before you know it, things will be up and running. There will be so much to share with your class families at home!

Why Classroom Newsletters?

Communicating with class families is essential when it comes to building a strong home/school connection. Newsletters are a way to give parents a peek at all of the wonderful things that are going on in your classroom. Families love to know what's happening in their child's classroom, and how they can support at home.

The nuts and bolts of class newsletters:

Content that makes families feel connected to their child's learning and the larger school community.

Not sure where to start? Find your answers here by including THESE 5 THINGS!

1. HOW OFTEN AND WHEN?

Before you put together all of your amazing information, decide on how often you'll send your newsletter out (weekly? every two weeks? monthly?) and when you'll send them out. The best you can, make it consistent!

I send out a weekly newsletter to my class families, via email. I send the newsletter on the Friday morning before the week ahead. For example, I'd send my newsletter for the week of September 21st - 25th on Friday, September 18th.

Now, real talk friends... are there some weeks where I get the newsletter for the week ahead emailed on Saturday or Sunday? Of course, YES! Life happens. For the most part though, I really try to hold myself accountable to that Friday morning.

I've found that this is a perfect balance between families having enough time to review what's coming in the week ahead, and for me to have enough foresight to relay accurate information about what I'm actually going to be teaching.

Decide what works best for you and your class!

2. YOUR INFORMATION

It's super helpful for your name, grade level/room number, and contact info to be smack dab at the top of your newsletter! This is especially helpful for families who have more than one child at school. 

You can never be too clear about who you are, what expectations you have for your class, and how families can be in touch with you.

3. CURRICULUM INFORMATION

When I first started teaching, I was SO eager to let families know what their children were learning in school. I still am, but I've changed the way I present this information. Way back when, I'd write PARAGRAPHS about what was going on in the classroom. These paragraphs often included teacher jargon like balanced literacy, scope & sequence... yada yada. You get the idea.

Here's the thing. Parents have super busy lives and oftentimes, they weren't interested in didn't have time for reading my long-winded, thesis-quality paragraphs.

Things to remember when highlighting what your students are learning:

• Big ideas in each subject area
• Simplicity
• Less is more
• Avoid teacher lingo 

Reading these efficient highlights about the magical things that are going on in your classroom will keep families on track, and give some background info for the awesome work their children are bringing home.

4. REMINDERS

If you're anything like me, your life is filled with strategically-placed sticky notes with "don't forget's" and "remember to's." Having a dedicated place in your class newsletter for reminders about daily classroom life, school policies, special classes... you name it, is a must.

As the classroom teacher, you're covering your bases and making expectations clear. You stay on track, class families stay on track... everybody wins!

5. UPCOMING IMPORTANT DAYS

Including a place in your newsletter for future events allows you to give your class families a peek at what's ahead.

Parents will be thankful for this addition, so they can add these dates to their own calendars, request time off work for to chaperone that field trip, or book the babysitter for that mid-week day off school.

In my newsletters, I try to highlight upcoming events or special dates from the next month or two. This way, I know that I'm giving plenty of notice without looking too far ahead.

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You can download these FREE Editable August and September Newsletters if you're interested.

(They're part of the Free Resource Library!)

You can grab the editable newsletters for the ENTIRE YEAR right here.

Weekly/Monthly & Color/Black & White formats are included! Just type in your classroom happenings, and send 'em home to your families! Be sure to install the fonts KG Miss Kindergarten and KG Red Hands to edit the text.

Hopefully these newsletter templates help you kick off the year on a strong note with parent communication.

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If you'd like to learn a little bit more about how I love to build a strong home/school connection from the get-go, head on over to this blog post to read about how I begin establish these positive connections before the school year even starts!

What are your best tips for effectively communicating class news? Would you add anything to the newsletter must-haves? I'd love for you to comment and let me know what's worked best for you and your class!

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