Meet the Teacher MADNESS!

"Meet the Teacher" is one of the most exciting days of the year for our students. They enjoy getting a sneak peak into our classroom for the first time, finding out where they sit, and getting some brief conversation time in with their soon to be teacher.

We, teachers, enjoy it too. Clean classroom, fresh decorations, the smell of school supplies...ahh...but with this exciting time comes a great deal of preparation on our part. It can be exhausting and overwhelming trying to get all those checklists finished before our classroom is presented to the world.

Today, I wanted to share with you two freebies that have helped make my "Meet the Teacher" day less stressful.

I always like to give my kiddos a "takeaway" when they meet me. Call it a "welcome gift" if you wish but it's just my way of showing them that I'm excited to spend this year getting to know them. Most kiddos love pop rocks so I created an easy, editable template that can be printed on cardstock that will allow you to attach a small packet of pop rocks and have a crowd-pleasing "happy" for your students.

First, I print the file on cardstock and a bag full of pop rocks from Dollar Tree. They usually come in a three pack - red, blue and green so I pick cardstock that will complement those colors well.

Next, I use my paper cutter to separate the two printables, attach tape to the pop rocks and stick them on the printable.

Easy and so much fun for the kiddos.

Grab this freebie here:  http://bit.ly/gumbopoprockcard

You can watch a video of how I put them together here:  http://bit.ly/poprockvideo

Next, I want to share with you the donation board that I use so parents can choose to provide our classroom with an additional supply - which is usually for art. Those supplies are used most often in my classroom and I RUN OUT QUICKLY!  

I have fallen in love with cactus clipart so this year, I made a donation board that was cactus themed! This resource is also editable so you can personalize for your classroom. I started by printing off the needed items, including the letters and donation request. I simply used two-sided tap for the letters and donation request, while using regular scotch tape for the donation cactus friends.

If you would like to watch a more detailed tutorial for putting it together, you can view it here:  http://bit.ly/gumbocactusvideo

Pick up this freebie from my TPT store here:  http://bit.ly/gumbocactusdisplay

Good luck at meet the teacher!

Love from the Bayou,

Back To School Scavenger Hunt

     The first few days back to school are nothing but EXHAUSTING! I talk until I'm hoarse, my feet and legs hurt from running around. It's just not pretty. I'm sure you experience the same thing.

     Every year, we stand in front of a group of kiddos and rattle off a gazillion things that-- let's be honest....they are totally going to still ask us about for the next 9 months.

     So combat my exhaustion...I have created the School Success Scavenger Hunt. I set up a bulletin board in a detective style with footprints leading to each Activity.

     To set up, I print all activities and place them in my rolling cart for easy access. 

I also hot glue the Team Pencils to clothespins so that the kiddos can move their team clip to each activity.

After I have everything set up, I introduce students to the Scavenger Hunt by projecting the Welcome Detectives letter.

Students complete a variety of activities including a Team Poster, All About Me Poster, Classroom Expectations Bus Flip, and Success Manual. After each activity is completed, they groups receive one clue letter. When all activities are finished, the clue letters spell out "SHINE" which completes the sentence in the introductory letter.

The culminating project of the hunt involves making goals for the year which is turned into a hallway display for Open House.

If you are interested in a more detailed explanation of this scavenger hunt, you can watch my video preview here:

School Success Scavenger Hunt

Good luck on your first day!

Classroom Rewards Made Easy

Rewarding students can be costly...like, literally, break the bank, take my whole check costly. But it doesn't have to. Let's face it, most of us don't remember "things" growing up as much as we do "experiences". So why not give our students "experiences" as rewards?

I began using a classroom economy several years ago as I transitioned from 4th to 3rd grade. Some of my co-workers were implementing this system in their class and I decided to give it a try. I began paying students for jobs in class, good behavior, grades, participation...you name it. Students could also lose money by poor decisions, incomplete homework, not returning items, etc. My kiddos were very responsive to this management. Let's just say that I have never been happier with my classroom management. So paying my students and taking their money turned out to be quite a game changer.

Once this economy was established, I began to brainstorm how they can spend their money. Purchasing prize bin goodies would have put this teacher out of business...so I started offering other rewards for their money. Students could buy "sit in the teacher's chair", a hat pass, a coupon to take their shoes off...etc. I find these to be SO much more meaningful to my kiddos and BONUS--they cost me NOTHING!

If you have never used a coupon reward system, you are going to LOVE it! You will save money and your kiddos will be happier than ever with your "prizes". I allow my kiddos to cash in their classroom cash 2 times per month--on Fridays. The cashing system is a classroom job so it makes it easy for me. I supervise students who are running the "coupon store". In previous years, I used a binder to hold the coupons, but flipping back and forth was tedious, time consuming, and frustrating...

SO... a teacher toolbox saves the day once again! I purchased this one on Amazon. Here's the link if you would like to grab you one.

http://bit.ly/amazonteachertoolbox

I designed my coupons to fit perfectly on the outside. I attached the card with 2-sided tape and then threw the rest inside the drawer. As you can see, I chose to print mine on colored cardstock. I also laminated them for durability.

Now, when my "coupon cashiers" run the store, they can easily access all the coupons and it takes less than 10 minutes for all my students to cash in. I require my students to "know what they are buying" before they come to the store for that day. In order for them to do that, I provide them a coupon list that they keep in their binder all the time. I find this also motivates them to work towards earning cash for a specific reward.

Here's my FREE coupon list if you would like to use it in your classroom. It is also editable so you can customize for your coupons.

http://bit.ly/gumboeconomyfreehandout

If you do not currently have reward coupons, you can download mine from TPT. They are editable so you can create additional coupons that you would like to use in your classroom. You can also change the price so that it fits your personal management system.

http://bit.ly/gumborewards

If you would like to watch the tutorial on how I set up my coupon toolbox, Use the link below to head over to YouTube to see it in action.

http://bit.ly/rewardcoupontoolbox

Happy Organizing!

Ugh...This Won't Print Correctly

Have you ever purchased a TPT product that just doesn't seem to print correctly? There can be many reasons for resources not printing as they should, but I'm going to share a tip with you today that just may alleviate your printing woes.

As teachers, we are all about saving money and that definitely includes INK. Unfortunately, our best intentions could be the reason we are not seeing all the images of a product when printing.

I LOVE teacher toolboxes so the example I'm using is my black and white set of toolbox labels available in my TPT store. I get many questions on how to get these to print correctly.

As you can see, this set is printer friendly and looks great on colored cardstock. Although, the labels appear black and white, they contain images. For example, these labels contain dots and a border. They look black, but they are actually an image I created and inserted into this label pack. Therefore, the computer reads them as an image...which means when you select only black/white or grayscale in your printing window, the computer tells the printer to leave out the color--which leaves out the images. Images are created with a combination of color.

Here is an example of a printing window with black/white selected and below it is the print preview for the product.

As you can see, the dots and border disappear completely when selecting the print preview screen. This is exactly what you would see if you actually printed this page.

Even though you want the page in black and white, you must select color when printing or all of your images will disappear.

Now the dots and border are viewable in the print preview window. Yay! I hope this solves some of your printing frustrations and helps you get the result from your resource that you are looking for.

View this tutorial on YouTube by clicking the link below:

Printer Problems Solved

If your interested in these labels, you can check them out at my TPT store:

Teacher Toolbox Labels

Happy Printing!