Jennuine Teaching

Today's Monday Made it is just a small share of the few things I made this week. I go back in a little over a week. My summer is sadly coming to an end. I enjoyed relaxing and making things for my classroom. I know the school year will bring so many great things. Summer is not over and I will be back next week to share what I make for my classroom. But onto this week... Item #1- Bathroom Sign I am lucky to have a bathroom in my classroom that I share with the classroom next door. My lovely teaching partner came up with the idea of using magnets on the back of sticks for monitoring bathroom usage. At the beginning of the year students love going to the bathroom whenever they feel like it. You would think that having a bathroom in your room would provide very little disruptions. Well it seems to be the opposite. I think since the kids see the bathroom in the room, they want to visit it more. I also use the bathroom sticks, but they would always fall off the door frame if someone wal...

Groundhog's Day is coming up next week and I will be talking about it next week. I've found a few cute activities that I am planning on doing with my students, but none of them had any facts about groundhogs. I went ahead and made my own little groundhog informational booklet for my students. I am giving it away as a freebie. Click on the picture to get the file for free. If you end up using it your class, let me know how you and your students like it.    

Do you ever have those morning with your students where it seems like they are all asking you what to do? Every morning we have a routine. My students come in, take out their homework folders, put their back packs away, start their morning work, and when they are finished they can either read a book or work on their math facts. It's been the same since the first day of school, but I still have students who ask me what to do when they are finished, or even worse... they just sit there and do NOTHING! I have created a morning checklist that will have all of those answers for, "What do I do next?" and that will leave you time to get morning routines done like lunch count and attendance. I have made a checklist that follows my morning routine, but I have also created a blank checklist that you can customize in your classroom. You can get the file HERE for free.

We have been working on synonyms in my class for the past few weeks. When I saw this activity on Pinterest, I KNEW I had to do it one day. My students struggled with coming up with their own synonyms, but know they are coming up with them left and right. I will most likely wait until later on during the year. I wanted to share with you a few pictures that I took of my kids as well as the bulletin board that the whole 2nd grade team put together. Our bulletin board. Each grade is assigned a bulletin board in the cafeteria that we are able to decorate. This is the first year that we decided to decorate it and I'm so glad we did. This is me showing off our activity.  A few of my little darlings. They were all so cute with their little chef hats on.  Posing in front of our bulletin board. I love my team this year. I didn't get permission to use their pictures on my blog, but trust me, they are amazing!! Now on to a freebie!! While preparing for this lesson, I tried looking all o...

Don't we all just love Pinterest? I know I do! I have been wanting to implement math centers into my routine this year and I slowly want to teach my students games that can one day be part of their math centers. I am currently working on a math fluency "program" (future post) and I knew that I wanted math facts to be a big part of my math centers. I saw this flip chute on pinterest and I thought it was perfect. I went ahead and made one of my own. It was actually pretty easy. There is a video on Classroom DIY, but I decided to do a more step-by-step video. You can see that video here. I also  made a template in word that you can go ahead and type your questions and answers into. Click the photo to visit my TPT where you can download the template for free.

With the school year starting soon, I'm sure a lot of us are reworking our classroom management plans. Some of you may even be making your for the first time. No matter where you are in the process, I always believe that it is the most important. I've always believed that if you don't have good classroom management, then everything else you do is a waste of time. What is the point in teaching a lesson while your students aren't paying attention? You're just going to have to reteach it. Why not use your time wisely and be productive. With all of the right procedures in place, your classroom will run smoother than butter! Sure classroom management and procedures take a while to teach and learn, but it is all worth it in the end. I am currently reworking my management procedures and when I do I will make an updated post. For today though I want to share with you what I did last year. When I first started teaching I was using this behavior chart. I wasn't really a f...