Monday Made It - Question of the Day Board and More

I am so excited that I can actually link up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It today! It has been awhile since I joined up with this fun linky party.

This first project has been on my to do list forever! I just could never find a large oil drip pan like this anywhere! This pin is from Proud to be Primary. It's a large magnetic board for the question of the day!



After constantly checking Walmart, hardware stores, and auto parts stores in my area with no luck, I finally found one on Amazon! I thought it was going to be smaller, but it's pretty big! It measures about 2 feet by 3 feet. I think it's the perfect size for this project! Plus it was only $22 and free shipping (when you spend over $25, but there are always books in my cart, so that was NOT a problem!).
So first up, I gave the pan a little quick rub down with some Goo Be Gone to get rid of any smudges or sticker residue left on it. Next I hung two small Command hooks at the top and used some purple masking tape to make the lines. I laminated and taped on some of my new Chalkboard Brights Letters from Teacher Created Resources. Then I hung my daily questions with binder rings on the Command hooks and placed round student number magnets at the bottom.

Each day we will flip to a new question and students will move their magnet number from the bottom section to either the "yes" or "no" sections. It will be part of our morning routine to answer the question so that I can check who is present and who is absent. It can also serve as a good discussion time and a math opportunity to count and talk about more/less.

I have a set of questions for each month that are on binder rings. The rings hang onto the Command hooks. Each month I just stick the new set of cards up and each day we flip to the next question. It is so easy to setup that even my student helper can do it. Same with resetting the numbers at the end of the day--a perfect job for a student helper.

These are my students' number magnets. More details about them below.

I decided to create a pack of questions for each month that I could use with my question board. The cards are two-to-a-page, so they are each about 4.25x11" big. They feature a hint of chalkboard and bright colours. Each month will have twenty-two question cards, along with six blank ones that you could write on with a dry erase marker or Sharpie.

I will also be bundling all the questions into a yearly pack. You will get all 220 cards for a discounted price. That's more than enough question cards to last you the entire year, so you can pick or choose some . There are no duplicate cards. Each of the months has a few holiday/seasonal themed cards (Halloween, Christmas, etc.), but there are lots of generic cards as well. (So far only September and October are done, but the rest will be done by the end of August!)

I have these Neon Book Bins from Really Good Stuff that I love. They have held up super well over three years now. Anywho, my new classroom theme is going to be chalkboard with brights--focusing on the colours pink, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. Well, the book bins I have are only in pink, yellow, green, and blue, so OF COURSE I had to be matchy-matchy and order some purple and orange book bins to complete my theme. These book bins will work as my students' book bins, house my home reading books, and hold some of my special teacher-only books and read alouds.

I created some cute numbered labels for my students' book bins.

You can find the circle labels from my question board above and these fancy labels in my new classroom decor pack. Each type of label comes in numbers 1-30 and letters A-Z. Check them out by clicking the picture below. The chalkboard decor style does use up a bit more ink that other designs, so if you are more ink-conscious, I still have my Rainbow Polka Dot labels.

Another project that has been on my to do list for over two years now were these Story Stones. These pictures are from Natalie over at Natalie's Nook. I already had the stones bought and the pictures printed and cut out--I just needed to modge podge them! Students can use these stones for story ideas during writing time. They turned out pretty cute!

While I had the modge podge out, I covered up the labels on my "What's that Smell?" jars for my senses explore tubs. Read more about those {here}. I also added number stickers to the bottom so I could create a little answer key for myself. Note: put numbers on the bottom of the jar, not the lid, because lids can easily get mixed up!

Here is another science activity I put together for my living things explore tubs. (Those will be up on the blog soon enough, along with my objects and materials tubs!) This is a seed matching activity. You need some packets of different seeds, small containers, and dot stickers. I emptied the seeds into the small containers (one type of seed per container), placed a matching number sticker on the back of the seed packet and the top of the seed container, modge podged the seed container, and laminated the seed packets.

Students can practice matching up the seeds to the type of plant. Here's my little Zoe having fun with the seeds. She just liked shaking them and hearing the sounds that they made!

Woo! That was a lot for a Monday. Now we can take it easy and get some coffee! :)

Oh, P.S. Math Book Monday is taking a little vacation until I go back to school in September. Most of my math books are at school anyways, so I will just wait until school is back on. Then I will be able to show you books that we are actually reading in class and what my class is working on to go with them.

Monthly Labels {Freebie}

A while back, I shared a bunch of my classroom labels in a post {here}. These were my monthly boxes that I stored my holiday activities, read alouds, and centres in. I have since updated my sweet cardboard boxes to some sturdier plastic tubs with lids that latch. I just added a file that had July & August, so you can have labels for every month of the year. You can download them below.

September-June Labels

July & August Labels

Happy Organizing!

Rainbow Classroom Labels

Ok, it is my birthday weekend and I am going to be busy, busy! But before I'm off camping and visiting with family, I wanted to quickly post about my Rainbow Classroom Labels. I wanted labels for my levelled library tubs and my student book boxes. I am using the six rainbow colours (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple) with Pete the Cat and polka dots thrown in for my classroom theme this year.

Here are my levelled library tubs, just waiting to be filled with classroom books!

This is the first year I am going to be assigning numbers to my students. I figure it saves me having to relabel everything with new names every year. I can reuse my beautiful year after year, until I change my colour scheme ;) These are my number labels for my students book bins... Just waiting for the lovely neon bins to arrive from Really Good Stuff!

I just loved the polka dots and the way these turned out, that I made some matching round labels. I'm going to use these to number various things, such as my new, in-the-making, math toolboxes! If you have not checked out Renee's new blog, The Reading Corner, you need to go there right now! She has some *AMAZING* Daily 5 math ideas. I may be a little biased, seeing as she is a fellow Manitoban teacher and there are very few of us, but I do love her ideas! These math toolboxes are one of her great ideas. Each student has a bag that has a variety of math manipulatives they would need for games, individual work, or whole group lessons. They just bring their whole bag with them when they are off to work! I am going to attach these circle number labels to each toolbox, so each student is responsible for the contents of their toolbox.

These rainbow labels can be used for a variety of things: lockers, cubbies, desks, math tubs, supply bins, reading bags--you name it! Click the picture to check it out at TpT. In this pack, you will get:

*square labels, 1-30

*square labels, A-Z

*blank square labels

*round labels, 1-30

*round labels, A-Z

*blank round labels

Classroom Organization

I feel like organization is one of my strong suits (at school anyways... home is a completely different story!) I love to see everything with a nice, colourful label on it. It makes me feel warm and fuzzy when I see a kiddo putting something back in the right spot. :) So here are just a few of my organization strategies and some free labels to help you get started!

Here is my organized art supply cupboard. I bought these little flip top containers from SuperStore (Canadian) a while back. They are a good size and stack nicely! I love clear containers because I can see what exactly is inside them. If you would like a copy of my art labels, click {here}.

Here is a picture of my classroom library. Again, I use clear containers. I sort my books by themes, authors, and series. Each tub has a number, description, and picture. On each book, I put a matching sticker with the tub number and picture. It makes putting books away really easy for the kiddos! After a brief "training session" at the beginning of the year, we hardly have any books out of place! I don't know if my number system would work for you, so I've uploaded my labels without numbers. Feel free to download my library labels {here}.

My math manipulatives are all sorted and stored in (you guessed it) clear containers with lids. I don't have any good pictures of them, but you can check out my math labels {here}.

Another organization tip for you... I store all my monthly files, books, decorations, centers, etc. in large file boxes. I might upgrade to large plastic totes one day, but for now the cardboard boxes do just fine. I like having everything in the box. If I didn't have the storage space at school, I could keep the boxes at home and just bring it to school the month you need it. Click {here} for my monthly labels. (You can download July & August {here}.)

And here's a quick little management technique I picked up from Pinterest {seen here} that has really worked for me! Every second Friday or so, I take the last 30-60 minutes of the day to have "Ketchup and Pickle Time". Underneath the ketchup card I write down the names of students who have work to "catch up" on. If they have more than one piece to do, I might write a number beside their name. If a student has no work to complete, they become a pickle and can "pick something quiet to do" (drawing, card games, reading, etc.) It really helps me during those weeks where I can see the piles of unfinished work just piling up. And it's a nice way to end a Friday, too! Want to try your own ketchup and pickle time? Download the cards {here}.

**Update** I've had a few questions about the daily schedule cards. They are created by the fabulous Cara Carroll at The First Grade Parade. You can download them for free from here. I did create the time cards though. You can download them from here. They are in a word document, so you can edit the times yourself. I drew the hands on the analog clocks with a black marker after I printed them out, but you could add arrows in word if you have the time!


There ya go! Enjoy!