How do you organize papers?

For the past 2 years, I have been using a daily duotang system to collect/organize my kiddos papers.  I have found this system has many benefits including:

1. keeping subject specific papers together
2. keeping parents informed of what we're doing in class
3. creating a format for assigning homework (if needed)

Our school board operates on a Day 1-5 schedule (instead of a Monday to Friday schedule), so this year my duotangs look like this...

Day 1: Weekly Newsletter/Reward System Update/WWW (Word Wall Words) Spelling Sheet
Day 2: English Poems and Songs/English WWW Homework
Day 3: Math papers
Day 4: French Poems and Songs/French WWW Homework
Day 5: Misc. (e.g., science, social studies, health)

Students are taught at the beginning of the year how to add papers to their duotangs.  Each day when they come into class, they drop them off in the appropriate bucket, and their new duotangs are laid out on the carpet.  The papers to go in are either at the carpet (if they're a completed sheet with their names on them) or in a pile on their desk spots (if they are blank).

I am super excited to add my first product to purchase onto TPT!  Take a peek to see what I put into my Day 2 duotangs.  Here are a few pics...

Last year, I started this project of creating Word Wall review pages that I could send home in my weekly duotangs.  The focus was on making the activities predictable so that students could complete them without parental assistance.   I have found that the students love doing these pages and have actually cheered when I gave them time in class to work on them.  I am so happy to have the chance to share this work with other people. 

Click on the image above or below to visit my TPT store to download this Word Wall Word Pack.

What are your thoughts on homework?  Do you have a system for keeping track/sending home all the goodies your kiddos work on in class?

Oh Canada!

Thanks to Heidi over at Secondgradealicious for introducing me to my first blog link up!

As a French teacher, it's so nice to connect with other Canadian teachers with Canadian ideas!

Click here to link up with other Canadian Teachers.

Click here to link up with Teachers across Canada based on the province.

A bientôt mes amis!

Mother's Day Cookbook

So I can't be the only grade 1 teacher who dreads Mother's Day just a 'little' bit (and same for Father's Day and Christmas)...you need to come up with the perfect gift.  It needs to be easy enough for the kiddos to complete, but still be something that is has that 'wow' factor when you open it up.  For the past couple years, I have done the same project, and it always turns out super cute, so I thought I'd share ;)

We make a cookbook of our favourite thing our mom makes us, and it ties into our procedural writing unit.  The best thing about this project is that the kids really don't need to know AT ALL how their mom makes it.  In fact, the ones that have no clue how it's made and need to 'make it up' completely are usually the ones that turn out the cutest.

The first step is for the kids to decide on a recipe and make an ingredient list.  Next, they write down the steps needed to make the dish.  Finally, they record why they like it the best.  This year, I added in a page for them to add a picture of them helping their mom to make the dish.  In the past, I have typed out their answers, had them type out their answers, and them write their answers for me to input (which is what I did this year).  Really, it's up to you!

Here's the final product!

 

 The front cover.

 One of the pages.  I love that when I asked "Why do you need to wait until 3 o'clock?" his answer was, "I don't know how she makes it, but that's when we eat it."  Makes sense, EXCEPT consider our bell doesn't ring till 3:25 pm...things that make you go 'hummmm....'

Another one of the book pages.

All wrapped up and ready to go.  Of course we needed a card.  I downloaded this card from Cassie on Teachers Pay Teachers for FREE!!

 

I added in a little poem to the inside, and now the presents will be ready to go home tomorrow.

If you want to pick up a copy of the printables, I'm including them below!  I'd love to hear what you think of the idea and please let me know if the download worked (this is my first attempt at using Google Docs) :)

 Click here to download the recipe template.

Click here to download the picture frame page

The frames are courtesy of Creative Clips by Krista Wallden.  Click here to visit her TPT store.  The food clip art is courtesy of The 3 AM Teacher.  Click here to visit here TPT store.

A bientôt!

Is there a "wrong time" to start something???

I think there might be...

Maybe it's the spring weather...maybe it's impending motherhood...maybe it's the thought of report cards just around the corner...maybe it's a student leaving for the year in 2 weeks and thinking 'oh crap - I still need to do this and this and this with him'...

Maybe it was the wrong time to start my blogging/TPT adventure.  I'm not sure...

James Cameron said "If you wait for the right time to have a child, you'll die childless"...so if I waited for the right time to start a blog, I'd die blogless, right??  Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing ;)

Anywho, long winded way of saying that I've been behind in blog posting, and I'm not going to remedy that tonight, but I'll leave you with a few pictures (cause that's what I like looking at when I read blogs).

In the class:

Here's a girl after my own heart.  Sorting everything by colours!!

This boy even had admirers from another class looking at his structure.  It reminded me of Jenga...

Here's an attempt at more purposeful play..."make a plan before you build your structure"...well I'm pretty sure they drew theirs after making the structure...not exactly the point...hummmmmm

Hopefully the focus for my next post...classroom tour: version 1.0

At home:

Thanks to my hub (...and dad...and father-in-law), the pool is getting clearer by the day...won't be long now till I can relax with a floaty and a cool beverage (probably just a Pepsi, until I'm cleared for more exciting beverages this summer).

My 3 baskets FULL of laundry to be put away...

At least I'm done the quilt and clock for the nursery, however still need to paint that bassinet (fyi - I've had the paint since August...even BEFORE I was expecting).

Lastly, the thing that is helping me to sleep at night...although I'm almost out!  Oh no....

Back to working on Mother's Day presents, and procrastinating working on the Mother's Day presents by making my first 'sellable' item for TPT.  Who am I kidding though...I'll be in bed within the hour :)