Monday, July 6, 2015

Monday Made It: July 6


It's Monday Made It!!! So excited to share with you what I've worked on this week. After you finish reading my post be sure to head over here to check out all the other awesome Monday Made Its!

Harry Potter House Point Containers

As I mentioned in last week's post, my classroom theme for this upcoming year is Harry Potter. One of the things I'm working into my classroom management as part of this theme is house points, just like in the HP book. To keep track of the points, each house I bought glass gems in each of the house colors (red, yellow, blue and green).
You can get the gems at most places like Michael's or Hobby Lobby, but I bought mine on Amazon because I didn't like the color choices at my local Hobby Lobby. The brand I found were called Gemnique Glass Mini Gems. While I was at Hobby Lobby however, they were having a 50% off sale on all of their glass containers, so I did buy my 4 containers (they're about 5 inches tall and 3 inches wide) to put the gems into as the kiddos earned them. The bonus is that I only spent $10 all together for all 4 containers! After I brought the containers home, I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut out the crests for each house in vinyl that matched each house's color. Then I applied it to the containers and this is how they turned out:



Harry Potter Name Tags

Like most things for my classroom theme this year, I need to make them since there isn't much really out there in the way of HP classroom decor...including name tags. I went hunting on TpT and on Etsy and found some HP graphics that I liked. The etsy shop I got the graphics from actually has graphics for all sorts of themed graphics so I'll definitely check the shop out again. After I downloaded the graphics, I used photoshop to make the name tags. I had them printed at Staples on cardstock and then laminated them with my Scotch laminator. Now they are ready to go to be labelled with my kiddos names once the school year starts and then attached to their desks. 



Math File Organization System

My last made it this week is more so just a reinvention of my organization system for math, since it was really more just me finding and buying folders to make a new organizational system. At my school, my 4th grade team and I use interactive notebooks for alot of our math instruction. We also have different task card games, tri-folds, center work, and independent work for our kiddos to do as well. This all means I have TONS of master copies of things that are bound to get lost at some point or another. While out shopping, I stumbled upon these nifty file folders:


I thought they were nifty because of the 3 pockets they have on the inside. Now, my school is also a school that uses standards based grading, so I like to keep my materials organized by standards whenever possible, and I thought these would be great for math. I took time this week to go through ALL (yes, an entire year's worth) of math instructional materials, sort and organize them by standard and then make folders for each standard. In each folder, I now have spots for INB pages, assessments, additional support materials/homework practice sheets, and skill review trifolds...basically any and every resource I have for that particular standard. Now, if I have task cards or any games specific to a standard, I just notated that on a post it and stuck that onto one of the pockets as a reminder since I keep all of my task cards and games in one of my storage cabinets in my room. Hopefully this is going to make all of my math planning for the year easier since I'll have basically all of my materials in one place. Here is what one of the files looks like with my materials in it:


I hope you enjoyed these made its as much as I enjoyed sharing them. Don't forget to check out the rest of the made its from this week too (link at the top of the post)!

Also, I'll be posting this week to share about the SDE Differentiated Instruction Conference (since it's held in Las Vegas and I live in Las Vegas, I've gone every year that I've been teaching). If you're going to the conference, leave a comment and let me know!

-- Stephanie

3 comments:

  1. My classroom is also Harry Potter themed. My students are sorted into the four houses at the start of each month using a Sorting Hat that I found online Throughout the month they can earn house points - I have jars very similar to yours with the gems! Then, at the end of the month, the house with the most points earns the house cup and gets to have lunch in the classroom with me. I make sure to bring a small treat. I am so excited to see all of your Harry Potter stuff. I can't wait to see more!

    Thanks,
    Alley
    teachingtoengage@blogspot.com

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  2. What a great idea to do the Harry Potter houses in your classroom. I bet my class that I had last year would've loved that. Maybe I can try this with my new kiddos!
    Alison
    Rockin' and Lovin' Learnin'

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  3. Love your HP nametags! Great job organizing your math supplies. It will be so handy this year!

    mybrightbluehouse.blogspot.com

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