It’s so important to have organized materials in your classroom so students can be independent and successful navigating on their own. Literacy centers run smoothly when you have organized word work materials because students don’t have to keep interrupting your group to get what they need.
During word work, my students do sight words for the first half of the year and practice spelling words the second half of the year. This organization system works for both my sight words and spelling words.
How to Organize Your Word Work Materials
Your Materials
First you need to start with what supplies you have for your word work center that you need to organize. For my word work center, I have play dough, expo pens, whiteboards, magnets, push pins, and various worksheets. Once you gather all your materials, you can begin to organize.
Organization
To organize, decide what would work best for your system. You can use drawers, bins, bags, boxes etc. I decided to use a combination of drawers and bins because that’s what works best with my materials.
Label
To make sure students can navigate through the center on their own, you need to label the materials. I use actual pictures so my kindergartens (who don’t read) can find what they need. If you teach older kids you could just label with a word.
Set Up
Once you have everything ready to be organized, you need to find an area in your room to set it all up. My room is organized mostly in sections so my word work goes in my word work section of the room. Read this post to find out how I set up my entire classroom.
To organize your word work materials you may need…
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How do you organize your word work materials? Comment below!
Behavior management is a crucial part of the classroom. Most teachers will agree that learning can only happen when there is structure, routines and expectations put in place. That’s why it’s so important to take the first few weeks (or however long it takes) to establish these important aspects of your classroom. I have three behavior management systems in my classroom that you can read in another post. Here, I want to show you how I track student behavior and the importance of it.
Tracking Behavior
In my classroom, I use a clip chart for individual behavior management. So, I track behavior for each student based on where their clip is at the end of the school day. (For more information on how the clip chart works, read here.) I use a graph to color in what color each students’ clip ends. This graph is a visual representation of their daily behavior. What I love most about this graph is that it is so easy to see if a student just had a behavior slip up or if behavior is something they struggle with. When I notice a student consistently getting low colors on my chart, I use a behavior intervention strategy (mentioned below).
Behavior Intervention When the Clip Chart Doesn’t Work
Every student responds differently to each behavior management strategy. Throughout my experience in teaching, I’ve had to find ways to reach each student. So when I notice a student getting low colors on my chart for a period of time, I try a behavior intervention until I find one that works.
Behavior Intervention Strategies
Chunk the Day – Sticker Chart: This chart separates the school day into smaller parts. After each part of the day, I conference with the student about their behavior and they either get to add a sticker to their chart or they don’t.
Recess & Lunch – Sticker Chart: Similar to chunk the day, this sticker chart is specifically for recess and lunch time behavior. This year, I’ve had a few students that do fine in the classroom but struggle with the freedom at recess and lunch. This sticker chart works well for these students.
Blurt Chart: This is for the student who shouts out. They get three chances (or whatever you decide) and then get a consequence. I’ve never used this but there are lots of blurt chart ideas on Pinterest.
Kerplunk: This is a whole class intervention and something that has become very popular amongst teacher Instagrams. You set up the game Kerplunk and each time the class shows the desired behavior, you have one student pull a stick. Once all the marbles/balls fall, your class wins a reward! I started this last month and am absolutely loving it! My kids responded so well and are so excited when they get to pull a stick.
What behavior interventions work best for you? Do you track your students daily behavior? Leave a comment below!
I love seeing all the creative ways teachers use interactive notebooks in their classrooms but I’ve always felt that they’re more for older students because of all the different pieces and specific places to glue. (If you’ve ever used glue with kindergarten, you know what I’m talking about – total mess!) But this year, I was determined to make interactive notebooks work for my kindergarten class. For my first interactive notebook experience, I chose to use them in science however, these tips would work in any subject!
Tips to Making Interactive Notebooks Work in Kindergarten
Setting Up Your Interactive Notebooks
Use a full-page label sheet to for the front cover. (This tip comes from Ashley at Teach Create Motivate.) I designed my cover to say Science Notebook with two scientists and a place for students to write their name. When I was ready to put these covers on my student’s notebooks, I printed them on these full-page labels which you put in your printer just like a regular paper. Then I trimmed the sides to fit and stuck it on the front, just like a giant sticker!
Glue a front cover for every unit or sub topic. My science curriculum has multiple units so each unit has different cover inside the notebook and that’s how we know everything after that cover page belongs to that unit. Some teachers use tabs to separate units or subtopics. I don’t do this because once we’re done with a science unit we don’t come back to it so there’s no need for students to tab back.
General Tips
Trim the actual interactive notebook pages that go in the notebook. This makes one less step for students and saves a ton of time!
Give your students one page at a time. If you give them the background page plus any other pages where you need to cut and glue or fold, things get jumbled and at least one kiddo is going to cut something that shouldn’t be cut.
Model, model, model! Of course this goes for literally everything in kindergarten but especially for the tricky interactive notebook pages.
Help your students find the next page. You wouldn’t believe how many interactive notebook pages I’ve had to pull out because a student just opened his notebook and plopped it down wherever it opened.
Although interactive notebooks can be tricky to navigate with the younger students, it’s totally possible with these tips and tricks! What would you add to this list?
When I first started teaching, I was stuck on how to organize my library. Some teachers organize by reading level, others by theme, some by genre and I wasn’t sure what would be the best way to organize for my kindergarten classroom. After thinking about it, I decided to organize my library by theme and I am so grateful I did because it’s been the perfect system for my room. Here are the benefits I’ve found to having a themed library system in kindergarten.
The Benefits of a Themed Library System in Kindergarten
Students Search by Interests
When your library is arranged by theme, students pick out books that look interesting to them. In kindergarten, most students can’t read so they pick books to look at the pictures. By organizing books by theme, kinder students find reading to be fun because they’re not worried about the words but what the picture shows. This way of organizing can spark a student’s curiosity to the world of reading. There’s a lot of power in choice and arranging your library by theme gives them many choices!
They’re Exposed to Many Different Words and Vocabulary
Organizing by theme exposes students to many different words and vocabulary. When books are arranged by level, a student who reads at an “A” might only see words like The cat sat on the mat. This is great when students are starting to decode and recognize sight words but it’s not great for vocabulary. Early on in the year, I teach my students how to read through pictures. I also teach them that in a story the pictures match the words. So a student interested in volcanos might pick a book with a volcano on the front cover and be able to match that the word is volcano because it starts with a “v” sound. A themed library gives students of all levels a chance to broaden their vocabulary.
Eliminates Competition
A library organized by theme eliminates competition in reading. I absolutely do not support telling kindergarten students their reading levels. This can make low readers feel horrible about themselves and high readers feel like their better than their peers. With such a reading range in the lower grades, it’s best to keep their reading levels between the teacher and the parents. When you organize books by theme, it doesn’t matter if an “A” level book is in with the “G” level. It also doesn’t matter if an “A” level reader picks the “G” level book. In kindergarten, I believe it’s so important to just get them exposed to books and words. There’s a time and a place for leveled reading (guided reading/literacy centers) but your library is not one.
Tips to Organizing Your Library
Color Code Your Themes
I put colored stickers on all my books as well as the bin that those books go in. This makes it so kindergarten students are able to keep the books organized. Each week, a student gets to be the librarian. When they’re the librarian, they take the books from our purple bin (where students put books their done with) and put them away according to their colored sticker. Students love a chance to help and kindergarten students are very capable of keeping things organized, you just have to give them the tools!
Separate Non-Fiction and Fiction
Non-fiction and fiction is something we talk about often in kindergarten. Students learn about real stories and fantasy. I find that it’s best to separate these types of books since they are very different. I have non-fiction bins for animals, science, social studies and math books.
Save Seasonal Books for the Season
To add excitement in your library, only put your seasonal or holiday books out when the holiday is near. My students love when I change our seasonal books. They know right away because I have a hanging bookshelf that holds all those holiday books. I put them on top of our bookcases as well. This puts them on display and makes them special.
There are many ways to organize your classroom library but I’ve found so many benefits to arranging my library by theme. How is your library organized for your students?
Teaching is such a rewarding profession when you see the difference you’re making in a child’s life but it’s also a challenging job because there is so much that goes into being a teacher. Do you feel like there are never enough hours in the day? I do. Do you feel like your on a hamster wheel trying to keep up with everything we need to do throughout the school year? Yeah, me too. These are some tips I’ve found helpful in being a productive planner so I don’t have to take tons of work home or spend all of my Sunday (or weekend) planning the week.
Tips to Be a More Productive Planner for a Smooth Week of Teaching
Plan During Preps
As much as I’d love to go into the staff room or see which of my teacher friends also have preps so I can chat with them, I try to always utilize my prep periods to get as much planning done as I can. This is often challenging because my preps are only 30 minutes which isn’t much time once I use the restroom and fill up my water bottle. That’s why I try to plan one subject at a time and make lists for things I can’t do in that sitting.
Start Planning on Wednesday for the Next Week
I also try to start planning for the next week by Wednesday (sometimes even Tuesday). This may sound crazy but this gives me enough time to get all my materials ready, papers copied and anything prepped that I’ll need.
Use Lists
Write out a list of everything you need to do (like make anchor charts or find a hands on activity) and a list of all the materials you need to get out. I even categorize my lists by subject! That way I can make sure everything is taken care of for each part of our day.
Get Any Needed Materials Ready
I’m super fortunate to have a full-time assistant teacher that can help me prep materials and make copies so I utilize her to the max. I get all my worksheets or copies I need ready so she can copy. Then, I organize them by what day I’ll need them. Behind my desk, I have a file box that holds each day’s copies. I also pull out any physical materials I’ll need like our big book, math manipulatives and any tools for a science experiment. All of these materials have specific spots in my classroom so when I need them, they’re waiting for me!
Check Files, Look at Last Year’s Planner, Search TpT
I love when I can look through my file and pull something that worked well the previous year. It makes it so easy to plan for the subject! For some lessons, I even try to write a sticky note telling myself what went well or what to change so when I pull it out the next year, I know how to adjust! I highly recommend using some kind of filing system for language arts, math and seasonal things.
It’s also helpful to check my planner from the previous year to see what time of year I planned certain units, projects or event special activities. I look to my previous planner for things like how long I’ll need for an activity for the 100th day of school or how many weeks my hatching chicks unit is.
When planning lessons, I always try to search TpT to find ways to give my lessons a little extra umph! Why reinvent the wheel, right? Using another teacher-author’s creation saves me time in making my own.
How do you make the most of your time so you can productively plan your teaching week? Share below!
In my kinder classroom, I celebrate many holidays and special occasions during the seasons. For those celebrations, I use certain materials that I only need during that special event. For the first couple years I taught, I just threw things in random places and then forgot where they were when I needed them the next year. Then, I would have to re-buy them (eye roll)… until I got organized. I found a very simple way to organize my seasonal materials so I could easily find everything I needed for each event in my classroom.
I use two main ways to organize seasonal materials: 1) storage bins and 2) files.
There’s many different ways to organize your classroom and materials but what I found works best (for me at least) is keeping all my bigger materials in a storage bin and the seasonal activities that are paper in files.
Storage Bins
I have 4 large storage bins that live above my cabinets. My room used to be a library so I’m not blessed with built-in storage. Each bin is labeled for fall, winter, spring and summer. Every celebration or event we have in my class, I look in the bin of what season the event falls in. For example, coming up we’ll celebrate our 100th day of school. When it gets closer, I’ll search through the winter box for all the materials needed for our 100th day centers.
Seasonal Files
In my file cabinet, I’ve started a file for every single holiday or special event that we celebrate in my class! This makes it really easy to find any lesson plans, activities or crafts when the celebration gets closer. These files are nothing special, just a place to store things that I want to redo with each class.
These two super simple ways of organizing have saved my time, sanity and money! What ways do you store your materials and activities? Comment below!
Differentiated instruction is such an important aspect of a successful classroom. In any grade, there is always a range of students’ capabilities. Some students flourish in some areas and need support during others. Some students need hand-holding throughout all subjects and others need a challenge. Differentiation can give students the extra support or challenge they need to never stop learning and never give up.
Differentiation: An Overview
By definition, differentiation is the “development from the one to the many, the simple to the complex” – Merriam Webster dictionary.
When teachers differentiate instruction, they tailor the lesson to the students’ needs by taking a concept they want their students to learn and providing support to lower students or a challenge to higher students.
Helping your Struggling Students
Your struggling students benefit a ton when you differentiate instruction because they are the ones who need extra help. They’re the kids who seem to be lost, don’t know the instructions, or guess to try to get by. There’s nothing wrong with this type of student, they just need you to hand-hold a little more.
How to help your lower students
Model more than you would for the average student
Do more examples together
Work in a small group (with students at a similar level)
Take the content and make it simpler
Make it hands on
Challenging your High Students
Your high students can greatly benefit from differentiating instruction because they need a challenge to continue to grow. These are the kids who are raising their hands, know what to do before you tell them and could easily get bored because they already know everything you’re going to say. These kiddos need a push to reach a higher level.
How to challenge your high students
Give higher level thinking assignments
Talk less, model less, give less examples – set them free to work on their own
Work in a small group (with students at a similar level)
Let them be helpers to students who have trouble – sometimes students learn more from peers
Make it hands on
When to Differentiate
Differentiating is tough, I’m not gonna lie. Taking a concept and splitting it up so it’s taught at all students’ levels seems like a lot of work and honestly, it is. That’s why I’ve chosen to focus on differentiating during reading and math.
My lower school team uses guided reading as a way to teach reading. I learned this teaching strategy when I got my credential so I was familiar and comfortable when I started teaching kindergarten. If you have a strong program (we use Fountas and Pinnel) and materials then it’ll be simple enough. Now, guided math is a different beast. This is my first year using guided math and I am just starting to get the hang of it. (That’ll be another post for another time.) What I’m learning this year while using a guided math is to differentiate by tweaking the curriculum program we have so I’m not making more work for myself.
Differentiating is such a magical tool that can really help students grow and flourish if you put the time in to set up a system, create the lessons and work with your kiddos in small group settings.
Do you differentiate in your classrooms? What tips would you give a beginning differentiator?
Field trip days are some of the most fun yet absolutely terrifying days for a teacher. Kids are thrown off their normal schedule, overstimulated and extra energized. On top of dealing with rowdy students, you’re expected to provide an educational experience while managing unthinkables that always tend to happen on the craziest days. This is why teachers often say they have super powers. We deal with everything and on field trip day the chaos is magnified. First tip to a successful field trip – get yourself a large coffee… you’re gonna need it.
In the four years that I’ve taught kindergarten, I’ve learned a few things about field trips and how to prepare in order to set yourself up for a more enjoyable experience.
Here are the 6 things you must do before a field trip.
1. Bring reinforcements – I mean Chaperones
First, you need to decide how many chaperones you want. I generally like to only take as many chaperones that I need to drive all the students. (Having too many parents can add to more chaos rather than helping.) Also, check with the field trip facility because you may have to pay for chaperones as well as students.
2. Send Home Permission Slips
My school has a certain permission slip that we send home that has the day of information and parents have to fill out the child’s doctor and emergency contact info. I send these permission slips home two weeks before the field trip. This gives parents enough time to fill out the form and send it back but doesn’t give too much time to where they’ll lose it and you’ll have to track them down.
3. Informational Letter to Parents
The week before the field trip, I send a general message to parents about the details of the field trip. As a kinder teacher, we have the extra step of making sure everyone has a carseat. TIP: tell parents to label the carseat with their child’s name on painters tape. In the past, I’ve had a few students who didn’t know their carseat and I had to go into investigation mode.
4. Separate Informational Letter to Chaperones
I also send home a separate letter to just the chaperones about their duties and responsibilities as a volunteer on the field trip. TIP: remind parents that they should put their phones away and really watch the kids. I make sure to emphasize that they are the ones in charge of their small group so that I’m not constantly the enforcer, running from group to group.
5. Color Code Your Name tags
I use large labels to make my name tags for our field trip. I write the students name (first name only) and put a colored sticker in the corner. The students know that if they’re in the green group, they must stay with other kids in the green group and stay with the green group chaperone. This makes it visually easier to know what kids belong to which chaperone and who rides in which car.
6. Pack Your Bag (or Backpack)
Like I said from the beginning, you never know what’s going to happen while you’re on a field trip so pack your bag so you can be prepared. I pack our first aid kit, hand sanitizer, wipes, Kleenex and water. I also put student’s permission slips in just incase. Make sure to pack any necessities for kids who have allergies also!
What would you add to this list? Anything you always do to prepare yourself and your class for a field trip? Leave a comment below!
My students absolutely LOVE to have responsibility. They’re always asking what they can do or if they can help, which is why I love my classroom jobs. Each week, students get a new classroom job where they can be responsible for a certain part of our class. Some jobs have a lot to do and others get little action.
Classroom Jobs for Students
Each year, I try to come up with a job for every student to do each week. I like when everyone has a job, even if the job is “substitute” or “on vacation” because it makes it easier to switch and manage the jobs. My jobs are hung on a ribbon that hangs near the front of my classroom. I clip a clothes pin with each student’s name on each of the jobs to keep track of who is responsible for what job for the week. When it’s time to switch jobs, I simply rotate the clips around the job display.
This year, my jobs include:
Board Eraser
Caboose
Calendar Monitor
Hand Sanitizer Monitor
King or Queen of the Jungle (which is our jungle equivalent to Star of the Week)
Librarian
Lights Monitor
Line Leader
Lunch Monitor
Messenger
On Vacation
Paper Passer
Place Value
Substitute
Table Wiper
Teacher’s Assistant
Weather Reporter
Items you might want for your classroom job system…
Classroom Job Specifics
I’ve organized this list into jobs that have a lot of activity (busy jobs) and jobs that are more low key (slow jobs).
Busy Classroom Jobs
Teacher’s Assistant: This person helps out whenever I need some extra help. I have them do things like turn on my SmartBoard, help the paper passer and anything else that might come up where I need to pick a student to do a special job.
Star of the Week: Self explanatory, they are the star all week! Check out my star of the week Jungle resource here.
Line Leader: Front of the line.
Caboose: Back of the line.
Hand Sanitizer: This person gives each student a small squirt of hand sanitizer before snack and lunch.
Librarian: The librarian puts books away. I have two purple bins that students put their books in when they are done with them. Each book has a sticker color that correlates with a color on a bin in the library. The librarian matches the book sticker to the bin sticker and places the book inside the bin.
Lights Monitor: Turns the lights on and off.
Paper Passer: Self-explanatory
Table Wiper: Helps wipe the tables off at the end of the day. No germs in my class!
Slow Classroom Jobs
On Vacation: This person gets to take a break for the week: no job!
Board Eraser: The board eraser gets to erase the board or SmartBoard after a lesson.
Messenger: This person delivers any messages or items to other classrooms or the office. Also, if a student needs help going to the office, they can bring them there.
Lunch Monitor: Checks to see if all lunch boxes are put away after lunch and before we go home.
Substitute (depends on if a lot of students are absent that week): This person does a job if a student is absent.
The other jobs are specific jobs to circle time so they are relatively busy since they have a job to do each morning, but their job is done once circle is over. Read about my circle time routine here.
Classroom Jobs Chart
My classroom jobs hang in a chart. Student names are on clothes pins and all I do each week is circle their names around the classroom jobs chart! Super easy to manage and everyone gets to do each job!
Resources
Check out my bright chevron classroom jobs resource here. Of if you have a jungle theme like me, check out the jungle jobs here!
Do you feel like you’re constantly picking up after your students in order to keep your room tidy? Why don’t you get the students to help?! My kinder students LOVE to have responsibilities. It makes them feel like they’re adults and they love being helpful. I organize my room and supplies so students can independently keep things clean. That way, when I give them responsibilities during clean up time, they put things away to my satisfaction, eliminating the need for me to clean up after them.
Room Organization
My first tip is to spend some time in the beginning of the year showing students where things belong in your room. I set my room up in sections. I have a writing center, listening center, word work area, math area and of course a free play section. Having sections in your room make it easier for students to know what things belong where and where they can go when they need a certain material. Check out my classroom reveal to see exactly what my room looks like!
In the beginning of the year, I give a classroom tour. During my tour, I show students what they can find in each area of the classroom.
Writing Center: paper, markers, extra crayons and colored pencils and our sharp/dull bins
Listening Center: iPads, passwords, headphones
Word Work: word work center materials, extra whiteboard pens/erasers, whiteboards, magnets, cookie sheets
Math: math manipulatives, puzzles, any math centers we’re using
Free Play: toys, the kitchen, blocks, Legos, dress up etc (this center is always the toughest to keep clean)
Within each station there is a system of how students can independently keep things clean and organized without my help.
For example:
Writing Center: I have a sharp and dull bucket. Students know when they have dull pencils or colored pencils, they put them in the dull bucket. Then, students can grab a sharp pencil or colored pencil in this area.
Listening Center: Students keep their headphones in a pocket of a shoe organizer. The pocket has their name so they know exactly where their headphones belong.
Word Work, Math and Free Play: Everything in these sections are labeled with a picture of the real classroom item. This helps students know exactly what should go where and what they can expect to find in certain spots.
Storage Organization
My second tip goes along with the last bullet point: label, label, label (and with real pictures). It is especially important to label with pictures if you teach kindergarten because they likely can’t read yet.
I also try to put things in bins or boxes to make it easy to stack and fit as much as I can in a small amount of space.
Some things I have in my classroom that you might want to try for your storage organization:
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Classroom Jobs
The last tip that has saved me lots of clean up time is to give students classroom jobs that specifically help clean up certain things.
Librarian: The librarian puts books away (pretty obvious). I organize this by color coding my library. Each category of books has a color and the librarian knows where to put each book because the label on the book bin has the same color. Once students are done reading their book, they put the book in one of two purple bins. The librarian puts the books in the purple bins away whenever they have some free time.
Scrap patrol: This person is in charge of making sure all the scraps are picked up off the floor and tables. I make sure to tell this person that they do not have to be the person cleaning but they can give friendly reminders to their classmates and help out whenever they can.
Lunch monitor: We keep our lunch boxes in two blue bins. When it’s time to clean up, the lunch monitor makes sure every student has taken their lunch box. I’ve had too many students forget their lunch box in the blue bin and it stays overnight getting very yucky and stinky.
Check out my bright, chevron themed classroom job set by clicking the picture! Or click here if you’d like a jungle theme!
These tips have helped my sanity in keeping the classroom clean but also not having to clean it all myself. Kindergarten students are very capable if you give them the right tools to be successful.
