An Anchor Chart for Introducing Angles!

An Anchor Chart for Introducing Angles from Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas!
This Is My Favorite Angle Anchor Chart!
{2017 Summer Fun Rerun}

I know it is not pretty, but the students make one at the same time I make mine on the over head camera and they take it home too! My old math series covered the angles in one day and then moves right along! :(

I tell the students to put the poster up in their room and tell their parents everything they learned about angles! Amazing! The next day they really have a handle on it and can usually draw the four main angles without anything up in the classroom!

This never was meant to be a Pinworthy picture, just a photo from my real life teaching, but it is all over Pinterest! Proof that what works isn't always pretty! Here are the steps, I hope it helps you too!
All you need is four pipe cleaners, construction paper and tape!
Directions:
1. Have the students fold the paper into fourths.
2. Model and bend each pipe cleaner into the correct angles.
3. Tape down and label.
4. Discuss Real World locations of these angles and write them on the back. 
For example: The letter L. A clock face. A greater than or less than sign.
Enjoy!  

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Back To School ~ Helpers In My Classroom

Classroom helpers procedures for a quick and easy system.
Helpers!
{2017 Summer Fun Rerun}

I  team teach, so I teach two different groups each day. The first group is the Blue Group and the second group is the Red Group. My classroom helpers are broken into two groups, one for the blue group and one for the red group. Part of my CHAMPS board is for helpers. Nothing fancy, nothing Pinterest worthy, just HELPERS printed on green paper with a couple of Gators and then the class lists for the blue group on blue paper and the red group on red paper. {I blocked out their names for this picture.} 
This makes it easy to change when we get new students or someone moves. I just revise and reprint the lists. Then I use two blue and two red thumb tacks to mark the daily helper. My helpers go in order. Two kids a day, each day. If you are absent, you are skipped. I also like to end the day saying, "Suzie & Johnnie, you HAVE to come tomorrow, you are my helpers." Who knows, if they are laying in bed thinking...time to fake sick....maybe, just maybe, being my helper that day will encourage them to come. Every little thing helps when your school has a high absenteeism rate. 
My two helpers do everything, they pass out papers, collect papers, take a kid to the clinic, run an errand, answer the phone, get copies off of the printer, pass out the reward tickets, everything! It takes two seconds each morning to see who is next, so you lose no instructional time! When I taught first I called them the king and the queen, but my third graders last year asked if I would just call them helpers. Since I am hanging with the bigger kids now, I guess king and queen just wasn't COOL! :)
How about you? Anything you would like to share with my followers about your helpers? Leave a comment and I'll add it to the post!



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How Do You Celebrate Summer Birthdays In Your Classroom?

Do your students have summer birthdays? During the school year you can celebrate their half birthday so they don't feel left out!
 Happy Half Birthday Celebrations!
{2017 Summer Fun Rerun!}

I am a June birthday ~ what does that mean exactly? To a little girl, it meant NEVER getting to celebrate her birthday at school...no cute hat for me, no cupcakes from home, no birthday song at the calendar, no pencil or card from my teacher ~ true, there are so many hardships in the World, but when I was little and in 2nd grade it SEEMED like every kid had their "Birthday" day at school but me! 

So when I started teaching I celebrated the summer birthday childrens' HALF BIRTHDAY. If they were born on June 16th, we celebrated on Dec. 16. My students have always loved this! It was still their special day!

So when I had children, our family tradition was to celebrate their half-birthdays too! My daughter's half-birthday is May 5, Cinco de Mayo, so it is always easy to remember. When I first wrote this post, she had her best friend over and we grilled steaks, potatoes and made modified rainbow cupcakes based on the recipe below. {I ♥love, ♥love, ♥love being back in Florida! I love eating outside again!} It was a nice evening.
Rainbow Cupcakes - Do your students have summer birthdays? During the school year you can celebrate their half birthday so they don't feel left out!
{Source}
I had found the rainbow cupcake recipe online and wanted to make them next March for when we do Roy G. Biv and study the rainbow at school... mine were not as pretty as these looked, but they tasted great!
So celebrating her half-birthday made me wonder, what do other teachers like to do for their summer birthdays? Feel free to leave me a comment and I'll add it to this post.

More Great Ideas Shared From My Friends:
Katie:
I usually do them during the month of May. If I can get them on the day of their birthday, we do that. For example, if their bday is July 16, we try and celebrate May 16th. It doesn't always work out perfectly, but it has worked out pretty well. The kids definitely love that they get to celebrate with their friends at school and get that pencil and sticker.

Miss Conrad
I let my summer birthdays chose any day they wish to celebrate! It normally ends up being their half birthdays because they love that idea but sometimes it's just another special day! I have one little cutie who has a summer birthday but celebrated her "birthday" in the classroom on the anniversary of her adoption date! So cute!

Jess 

I feel your pain on the summer birthday. My birthday is the last day of June. But I have always loved having a "summer theme" birthday: pool, beach, water park, slip n slide!
For my students in my class we celebrate their birthday in June the last week of school. Since I have little ones they love the idea of celebrating just a month early. I like the idea of half birthdays and may do this next year. I just want to make sure no one gets left out. I give my students a bookmark, pencil, huge sticker, and lots of hugs on their birthdays or days we celebrate their birthday.


DJ
I love the half birthday idea! I will need to remember that next year. I also had a summer birthday, July! And as a child I felt a little left out for sure. But my mom was a teacher and so my birth was strategically planned so she could be at home with me the first couple of months and she would not have to take time off.  
Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas ~ Helping Teachers One Resource At A Time!
http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Fern-Smiths-Classroom-Ideas

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Are You Teaching Still in the UK or Australia?

Do you teach in the UK or Australia? Many of my Color By Numbers and Color By Codes come in the UK friendly version with GREY for GRAY and COLOUR for COLOR. #FernSmithsClassroomIdeas

Many of my Color Your Answer Resource also come in a UK Version. With grey for gray and colour for color, you can easily print these for your daily lesson plan with very little prep.
Your students can enjoy reviewing important skills while still having some childhood fun coloring the pages. 
ALL resources come with answer keys, perfect if you need to leave it for a substitute teacher day. ALL skin tones are empty so that the students can follow the directions printed at the bottom of the page. "You pick the colour for any empty area." including skin tones.

Click here to see the resources sorted by BEST SELLERS.

Click here to see the resources sorted by NEWEST LISTING.

I hope your students enjoy them as much as I do creating them!
Do you teach in the UK or Australia? Many of my Color By Numbers and Color By Codes come in the UK friendly version with GREY for GRAY and COLOUR for COLOR. #FernSmithsClassroomIdeas


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Organization ~ Read Alouds By Month & Author!

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 How to organize your classroom read alouds by month and authors.
Organized By Month & Then By "Left Over" Authors

Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas How to organize your classroom read alouds by month and authors.
Judy Blume Section
Fern Smith's Classroom Ideas How to organize your classroom read alouds by month and authors.
Easter Read Alouds & Listening Center
Organization is the difference between a good teacher and a great teacher! It is the difference between a great teacher and an excellent teacher because you are not wasting your time & energy looking for things!

Here is how I store my Read Alouds,
I hope my system helps you too!
Some people have great big closets and/or lots of shelves. I am NOT one of those lucky teachers! I have a wonderful portable here in Florida & I'm just so happy to have a job in my hometown that NOTHING about my portable bothers me! 

When I first started teaching I wasted so much time trying to find my own personal books in the classroom library. I wanted the students to have access to ALL my books, but then I would waste so much time looking for "The Velveteen Rabbit" when Easter was approaching! Some years I would have to waste more time going to the Public Library when the book I wanted to read was missing from my classroom!  

I have wised up with age! 

My classroom library DOES NOT NEED each and every book I own & there is nothing wrong with keeping my Read Alouds separate from the rest of the books.
My pictures do not show that many books because I've "LEFT" teaching three times {never say never} and every time I would leave I would have a massive classroom garage sale! Duh!!! I left teaching twice to stay at home when each child was born to try the Stay~At~Home~Mom~Thing & then the third time was when we moved back to Florida from Texas. I followed my long-term dream to be a Real Estate Agent! Seriously...

OK Now ~ Stop Laughing! 

I took the classes, passed the tests and went on interviews. Prayed to God for the agency across the street to hire me & He told me to go back to teaching! No joke! The very next day at 8:00am I was sitting in my daughter's orthodontist office & got a phone call about returning to teaching in my very desired hometown district! Never mess with God's Plan ;) Anyhooooo, back to how I organize my books!

Steps:
  • Label your folders, one for each month & one for each holiday.
  • Label your folders, one for each author you like or that you "collect" in your grade level.
  • Organize them by school year, August to July. If there is a certain author that you like during a certain month, put their folder behind that month. For example: I adore Tedd Arnold and I read his Huggly series & his Parts series at the beginning of the year. They are slap-stick funny and it helps to build a relationship with my students and how books can be read JUST FOR PLEASURE! :)
  • Put the rest of your authors behind July in alphabetical order.
Now when you are preparing for Thanksgiving, BAM! just pull out all of your books. I like to keep them in a basket by my "Teacher's Reading Chair" at the front of my gathering area and I also let the boys and girls read them, I just "train" them to put them back into the basket. Another nice feature about keeping your seasonal books together is when you start to get more than one copy of a book, the students can EEKK {Elbow, Elbow, Knee, Knee partner reading from the Daily Five} read with them. This way wastes very little student time while they try to look for matching books!

How to organize your classroom read alouds by month and authors.


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