Ms. Pitner's Classroom Tour

This year, there are two more Pitners contributing to Pitner's Potpourri! My daughter, Martha, and daughter-in-law, Aleck, are both teaching third grade.

Today, I'm going to give you a tour of my daughter's classroom. She's worked hard to get her third grade classroom ready for her new bunch of kiddos. It's been fun for me to see her use some of the same ideas I've always done,  yet with a little twist to make them her own.

My FAVORITE thing she did in her classroom has to be these labels she put on the stools at her small group table. 

She's planning on using them as quick formative assessment at the end of her lessons. The child on the CHARACTER stool will name the characters in the story or answer a character - related question. One of her co-workers helped her come up with the idea. How cool is that!!!

(See a link for the stools at the bottom of this post.)

Her small group area has easy access to all her supplies, the station rotation board, and her questioning bulletin board.

The cute window treatment was quick and easy. She just ripped strips of coordinating fabric and tied them onto twine. Because it was so easy, she also made one for her library and her hallway door. And aren't those little flower pots darling?

 Martha is experimenting with flexible seating this year. Here are some of her kiddos using flexible seating for Word Work.

Martha purchased these lap trays for the kiddos to use when working with their Chrome Books, but they've already claimed them for station work, too. That cute cart by the door is labeled with each class's name so that the kiddos know where to turn in their work. This cart is from Michael's, but I linked to a similar one from Amazon at the bottom of this post as well as to similar lap trays.

Some kiddos still prefer a table and chairs, so be sure to include those options.

 I've already shared her Writing Station cart in an earlier post. The kiddos wheel it to wherever they want to work.

Goals and objectives are front and center.

I LOVE her WOW Work Wall.

 The Word Wall is convenient to the Word Work supplies.

This board will list the expectations for use of the classroom set of Chrome Books once she and the class set them. It's always important for the students to participate in developing the expectations. Gives you much more buy-in!

I'm proud of the cozy, engaging learning space she's created for her students! Stay tuned for the "other" Mrs. Pitner's class. I'll be sharing my daughter-in-law's pics soon.

Dice Games Freebie

Need a quick math station for Back to School?

These dice games are a great review for basic facts in addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, as well as fluency practice.

Just click on the pic below to get the freebie!

Don't forget to enter to win a $100.00 Amazon gift card. 

GIVEAWAY DETAILS

Prize: $100 Amazon Gift Card

Giveaway organized by: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher)

Co-hosts: Kelly Malloy (An Apple for the Teacher),  Teacher Jeanell, LIVIN' IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER, MM Bilingual, Mrs. Hansens Helpfuls, Digging Deep to Soar Beyond the Text, Ms. K, 180 Days of Reading, The Best Days, Heart 2 Heart Teaching, Cathy's Cool Creations, Leah Popinski, Walk with Me a Second, Jackie Crews, Teacher Gameroom, It's a Teacher Thing, The Watermelon Teacher - Susan Krevat, Reading and Writing Redhead, It's Kinder Time, "Dee Bibb - Teaching at the Beach", KB3Teach, Kovescence of the Mind, Teach with Hope, Brynn's Teacher Bag, Growing Grade by Grade, Momma with a Teaching Mission, Cara's Creative Playground, Lockwood's Little Learners, Sliding Into 1st, Taking on Second, Southern Drawl, Love Luck and Laughter, and Pitner's Potpourri.

Rules: Use the Rafflecopter form to enter.  Giveaway ends 8/11/17 and is open worldwide.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck!

Back to School Classroom Scavenger Hunt

Looking for a way to reinforce your classroom rules, procedures, and expectations?  Give each student or pairs of students a copy of the recording sheet and turn them loose! Students write the answers in the boxes on the sheet. A blank sheet is included so that you can add tasks.

Visit my TpT store by clicking HERE for more back to school goodies!

Back to School Bingo

Here's a fun icebreaker for Back to School.

Two versions are included. One grid has 24 blanks. The second version has thirty blanks. Students will ask all of their classmates for their autograph. Include yourself for more fun! You may include the name of the school, principal, etc., if you need to fill up more blocks. Call the names and other terms out as you would for a regular game of Bingo.

Just click on the pic below to get the freebie.

Be sure to check my TpT store for other Back to School ideas!

Happy Back to School!

Super Heroic Writing Prompts for Back to School

Looking for some writing prompts for the first week of school?

Here are five days worth of prompts featuring cute super heroes from MelonHeadz. I just love her graphics. If you haven't visited her page, you should stop everything and go RIGHT NOW!

Click on the pic below to grab the prompts.

If you'd like enough prompts for the first nine weeks of school, visit my Teachers Pay Teachers store by clicking HERE. You'll get a full color version to display on your board for the entire class to see, plus smaller black and white copies to paste into writing journals. You can also put either version on a ring in your writing station.

If you'd like the prompts, but want a different theme, leave me a comment below. I can't do a free version, but will be glad to see if I can make you one to purchase.

Back to School Scoot

Looking for a fun Back to School activity that gets your kiddos out of their seats and moving? 

Scoot activities are guaranteed to get your kiddos engaged in a fun activity while you need a little time to get all your first of the year forms and supplies checked.

Just click on the pic below to get this fun freebie! Print out the cards, place on desks, give your kiddos some paper, and let the fun begin. It's a great way to learn some interesting facts about your new group of kids.

Leave me a comment and let me know how you used my Back to School Scoot.

Can't Live Without!

Don't you have some tried and true items you know you can't start school without? I do!

I've always depended on heavy magnetic hooks for a myriad of uses. These are a little different than the ones I've used in the past, but you can't beat this price! Grab a pack now to hang your pocket charts on a magnetic board, keep rings of sight words handy, or keep up with all those important papers you get at the beginning of school.

These Sterlite boxes are PERFECT for storing centers. The kiddos just pick up the box and move to their choice of seating to complete their work. Here's a great deal on a pack of six.

If you don't want the six pack, click on the link below for a single.

Black Sharpies -- Can't ever have too many! 

I copy all of my station/center activities on card stock before laminating for extra durability.

Once cut out, I use these heavy duty laminating pockets with my trusty laminator.

I store the activities in cute file folders like these. I LOVE Barker Creek products!

These self-adhesive zip lock pockets are a lifesaver for keeping up with all the small parts of learning activities I use in my stations. After I've decorated the folder, I laminate it, then apply the pocket to the inside or back cover.

Please leave a comment with your "Can't Live Without" items for Back to School.

Back to School Scoot -- Freebie

Looking for a fun activity to get your kiddos up and moving? The bonus to this Scoot is that you will learn more about your kids AND...since they can do it independently... it will give you a few minutes to work on some of that paperwork you have to get turned in!

Just click on one of the pics above to get your freebie.

And speaking of freebies...

Don't forget that every night this week you can visit A Class*y Collaboration between the hours of 8:00 and 9:00 Eastern and get freebies donated by this great group of bloggers! Just click on the pic below to see what's offered tonight.

One more thing...

Don't forget that today is the special one day only extension of the TpT Back to School Sale.

Click on the pic below to visit my store and get some of those items on

your wish list.

Classroom Tour (Part Two) AND Black and White Label Freebie!

Thanks for all the sweet comments from yesterday's classroom pics. Here's the rest of the room.

Aleck made some wonderful anchor charts to get me started. We outlined them all with black paper and laminated them so  I can use them from year to year. I'll add our new responses each year with post-its or a dry erase marker. I punched holes in each and hung them from the wall using the Command wire hooks. When I need a chart, I can unhook it and put it on the board. After we complete the chart, it goes right back up so the kids can always refer to it. I'll take a pic of each completed chart for them to glue into their literacy, math, science,  or social studies notebooks.

We'll brainstorm expectations for the students and the teacher during whole group sessions. I get a kick out of what the kids say. One of their expectations of me last year was to love them!

Small group expectations are brainstormed and listed. 

We spend lots of time over the first two or three weeks of school learning the procedures and expectations during station work. It's worth every minute! 
All the charts hang at the front of the room so we can refer to them all year long.

This is the other side of the Promethean Board. The board is for our Calendar Math. I'm incorporating this into Math journals this year. I'll be posting lots of freebies for this a little later.

Icing our cupcake is just a gentle reminder of how the students can make their work even better. They will write one way they can improve their work on a bright pink post-it and add to the chart. Every so often, I'll give the kids a pink highlighter and get them to "ice" their work by highlighting the part of their paper that they think is their best work. Some days, I also give them a different color highlighter to mark the part of their work that gave them the most trouble.

My kids love all things David, so what better way to talk about being a good student! We will read No, David and David Goes to School and define the characteristics of a good student. Go   {HERE} to get the original post from Welcome to Room 36's blog.

My number of the day chart is going to be part of our morning calendar work. There are lots of these charts floating around blogs. Mine is based on the one {HERE}.

Fancy Nancy is hanging out below the board. We will write our boring word on the left and brainstorm our new "Fancy Nancy" words on the right. They can add their T charts to their writing journals. I added "Fancy Nancy words made Fancy Nancy sentences" to fit our Common Core standard of expanding sentences so the children will be encouraged to use the new words in their writing.

This is my assistant/co-teacher's table for small group and one-on-one work. All Math manipulatives and supplies are on the two wire shelves in the corner.

I love.love.love my orange and blue baskets. I've had them for several years and think they came from Wal-mart. These labels are the same as those on the baskets on my new shelf. 

Here's a closeup of the labels. You can see the chain from Lowe's used on ceiling fans a little better in this shot.

Click on the pic above to get the free label doc.

This is a large chart listing the steps of bar model writing for our Math in Focus series.

I like my computers lined up so that I can see at a glance what my students are doing by just a quick glance at the screen. 

The middle of the wall is home for lots of anchor charts we will use to start the year. Since they hang on the wire Command hooks, I can move them when I need to and even hang new charts on top of these when I need the space. I think most of the charts can be seen {HERE} on Pinterest.

The charts on the left window are our expectations for buddy reading and read-to-self time, as well as our literacy procedures.

This is a new place for my Word Wall. I am using the same black and white polka dotted labels for the wall. For some reason, it's hard to keep things on this wall. The large pieces are put up with Command poster strips since they will come off without damaging the wall. I'll put the words up with Mavalas Tape (go here for info) by making a tape pillow on the back of the word card and sticking it to a small strip of Mavalas tape on the wall. Just put the tape pillow on the non-sticky side of the Mavalas tape. Did I explain that OK? :)

The Word Wall is over my classroom library. Aleck and I used my iPhone to scan all my books into Classroom Organizer from Book Source. THey are listed by title, author, and Lexile level. The kids can use the computer to check out books and I can run reports to check reading trends. It's free and I love it!

Click on the pic above for more info.

The books are on more wire shelving and are organized by Lexile level. I tried grouping my subjects, authors, etc., but Lexile levels work best for me. Since The Organizer lets me add a location when I scan in a book, I put the level range that is on the basket. A 460 level book will have a location of 400. The kids know to look in the 400 basket for it. 

I used binder clips to hold on my black and white polka dotted labels.

The top of one of my shelves holds the book hospital for repairing books and a basket of toy microphones I got at Target last year. We use them for fluency practice and Buddy Reading. I love my READ sign in the window!

This is the back of the room and the students' cubbies. The two Adirondack chars came from Lowe's. The round table was a Goodwill find. I have it lowered as low as it will go so we can use crates as seats.

I'm not a very crafty person, so I bought bar stool cushions with a rubbery substance on the back so they won't slide.

My Math station boxes are stored here. I'll explain more about my stations procedures in another post. The small easel is from Big Lots and holds our handwriting station supplies.

I added "thinking words" to my back wall last year to encourage me to use them when I was asking questions. As an extra benefit, the students started using them, too! This is one of my favorite parts of my room!

The words are taped to adhesive wall decals. We can't attach tape of any sort to the dry wall, so I smooth the decal on and tape to it.

The bathroom door is "Mission Control." The large pocket chart serves as our lunch count, attendance, and book checkout station. The two red charts are for station rotations for literacy and Math.

I turned the filing cabinets so that they make an L and put another wire shelf in the corner of the L. All of our Poetry station supplies are here.

The filing cabinet also holds our bucket filler cards I printed for free at VistaPrint. I can't find the original source for my bucket filler sign and the buckets in the pocket chart. If they came from your blog, please let me know so I can give you credit.

The sink cabinet holds our mailboxes (can't live without them) for returned papers to be put in our weekly envelopes home. The red basket is for complete work. Both sharpened and unsharpened pencils are kept here. Our treasure box is there, too. The lower doors each have a cookie sheet on them. I let the kids use this area for magnetic word building. One board usually holds the names of my helpers. The magnets are all freebies form VistaPrint.

The corner by the door holds writing paper, dictionaries, wordless picture books for writing prompts, and our literacy station boxes. The pockets on the door are numbered and hold our ActivExpressions.

The wall decals hold our stations procedures. I'll go into detail on our stations in a later post. LEt me just say that putting everything in these wonderful boxes with snap on lids freed up the space in my classroom as well as the time it used to take me to prepare stations.

This is the view from the back looking toward the front.

This is the view from the Math corner looking toward the front door.

 I guess that's it for the tour. 


I still haven't made any plans for the first day! I guess I can't put it off any longer.


Please be sure to check back for my "blogaversary" giveaway. Several of my blogging friends have donated prizes  to help me celebrate! You won't want to miss it!