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.