Back To School Survival Kit

I know I am not the only person who uses the "Back to School Survival Kit" idea each September.  In fact, when I went back into the classroom from being a consultant many years ago, I found the idea on the Internet.  I was surprised by the reception this little gift garnered at my school the first fall I was teaching there.  My colleagues thought the idea was very creative and new!  I guess I thought the idea was pretty obscure too, until I went on Pinterest this year!  There are LOTS of versions of this, what I would now call, a "back to school classic".  I still LOVE to do this each year, and I change it up from year to year, depending on what materials I have available.

Get your own copy of the NEW UPDATED printable list by clicking this link and download from my TPT store.

 Some years I have used coloured paper bags, like the one pictured above.  I have found the best selection at back to school time.  When I DO find them I try to stock up and keep them for future years.  You can also just use a "brown paper bag", I have done this and the kids love it all the same. 

I have also used plastic pencil boxes (when I used to be able to get them from Costco for less than a $1 each.)  Those days are gone, but you can still sometimes find boxes like this on sale at back to school time.  I have seen other pencil box type containers at dollar stores that would work well.

  This year I decided to do something different.  I ordered these neat pouches from ForTeachersOnly.com.  Why?  Well if you have read my earlier posts, you know I love to order personalized pens from this company as and end of year gift for each student.  I have never been disappointed in their products.  I have also ordered their personalized pencil sets.  The quality and service is awesome!  This year when I was ordering my pens, I looked at the pricing for the pouches and thought to myself "This could be a neat container for my back to school survival kit, it has multiple items included already and it's less than $1 each!"  I ordered them at the same time as my pens in order to have them ready for final assembly in August.  I intend to put the final items from my printable list in each pouch and then print, label, sign and attach one copy to each pouch. 

I put these "survival kits" out on the student desks the night before school starts...(along with some BELL work....I'll save that for another post.)  The students love them, the parents love them and I find this is an essential part of how I build rapport with my class at the beginning of the school year.

P.S.  I also make one for my student teacher each year.  The teacher candidates I host start the first day with the students, so I like to include them in my yearly ritual too (but I usually use a MUG and put some different items in their own "survival kit").

What are your favourite back to school classics?

Another FREEBIE

I had wanted to go into school today, but the air conditioning repair guy was supposed to come...yes, you know what happened...he didn't show...sigh:(  Anyhow, I thought to myself, why don't you do some of the things you wanted to do at school here at home.  So, I started to go through all the files I needed for the beginning of the school year and printed them out.  I had just bought a $100 printer cartridge for my laser printer (OUCH!) so I went ahead and did some printing.  I have most of my new teacher binder complete, and I have a nice package of materials for students for the first couple of weeks ready to be (I know, I know...) photocopied.
While I was working away, I kept looking at my "pink slip" form I have used when homework is not completed.  Luckily, I don't have to use it very often, but when I do the kids know they are in BIG trouble with Ms. M (or so I like them to think).  The form has always been pretty simple, and I have traditionally printed it out on hot pink paper.  I knew this way the parents would see it stapled into the student's agenda/planner right away.  It has worked well for me over the past few years, BUT I wanted to do something a little different.  I looked at other teacher forms/slips for incomplete homework but none of them worked for me.  I decided to make my own.  I seem to have gravitated towards polka dots this year for my classroom and lots of black, white and red (also some Tiffany blue for me).  I made my Homework Not Completed form on a red and white polka dot paper.  

I figure I can either print it as black and white and photocopy onto the HOT PINK paper OR I can print it in colour (at school) and the red will be eye catching too.
If you would like a FREE copy of this form just click HERE and download a copy.  Let me know if it works for you, I am going to try it out starting in September.

Favourite Read Alouds

Ashley over at Teaching Happily Ever After has created a linky party for read alouds.  There has been a lot of debate over the past few years at my school about the actual benefit of read alouds.  Some teachers LOVE them and do them all the time, others think we don't have enough time to have students engaged in this practice.

I have ALWAYS made time for read alouds, in fact, I would rather make time for this than for DEAR or silent reading.  Why?  Because the students I teach DO read A LOT.  They are gifted students and most of the them read at home every day.  Ideally the students in my class get time to do both, but if I had to choose, I would not give up my read alouds.  

When I read aloud to my students it "stimulates their imaginations and emotions; models good reading behaviour; exposes them to a range of literature; enriches their vocabularies and understanding of sophisticated language patterns; makes difficult text understandable; models the fact that different genres are read differently; supports independent reading; and can encourage a lifelong enjoyment of reading."Annenberg Foundation

I have SUCH vivid memories of Mrs.Cash my fourth grade  teacher reading aloud each day.  In winter, she would make us hot chocolate, (Tang in the warmer months) give us all our own cup and she would read aloud while we had our special treat!  I distinctly remember "The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe" and "Voyage of the Dawntreader" by C.S. Lewis. 

My fantastic, passionate teacher brought the characters to life and sparked my imagination by exposing me to books my parents would never have thought of buying for me.  I lived in a house where both my parents read a lot, but they did not think about what to give to young readers. I was left to my own devices while they devoured adult novels and Time magazine! Many of my teachers, but especially Mrs. Cash, did an awesome job of steering me in the right direction.

Having taught junior grades for over 20 years, I still have my old favourites, but I have collected some new ones along the way too.  I try to choose a novel which matches the "theme" in my classroom.  If I am teaching about Space I try to choose a novel such as "A Wrinkle In Time" to encourage the students to think beyond the science, and to use their imaginations as we read about the mysterious "tesseract" and ponder what will become of Meg's father.

When I am teaching about  Canada's Links to the World, I often read aloud the story "The Breadwinner", part of a trilogy (followed by Parvana's Journey and Mud City) by Deborah Ellis.  The story of an 11 year old girl dealing with the Taliban and the effects of the war in Afghanistan open my students eyes to possibilities of a life they could never begin to imagine.


When I finished the read aloud, I make sure I have copies of the other books in the trilogy to "hook" students who are interested in following up the emerging saga on their own.

I always begin the year with reading Norton Juster's classic "The Phantom Tollbooth". It tells the story of a bored young boy named Milo who unexpectedly receives a magic tollbooth one day when he arrives home from school, "bored as usual".

This tollbooth takes Milo on a journey to a land called the Kingdom of Wisdom. Milo meets many interesting characters along the way and acquires a few special companions. He has many adventures, and eventually sets off on a quest to rescue some very special princesses. The novel is filled with figurative language, and puns. Some parts of the story, including Milo's jump to the Island of Conclusions, give excellent literal meanings of idiomatic language.  I find that I can refer to the book throughout the year and the students find the references to Milo's misfortunes to be very funny and memorable!

While teaching my unit on Flight, I either have the students read or I read aloud "Airborn" by Canadian author Kenneth Oppel.  "Matt Cruse is a cabin boy on the Aurora, a huge airship that sails hundreds of feet above the ocean, ferrying wealthy passengers from city to city. It is the life Matt's always wanted; convinced he's lighter than air, he imagines himself as buoyant as the hydrium gas that powers his ship. One night he meets a dying balloonist who speaks of beautiful creatures drifting through the skies. It is only after Matt meets the balloonist's granddaughter that he realizes that the man's ravings may, in fact, have been true, and that the creatures are completely real and utterly mysterious.

In a swashbuckling adventure reminiscent of Jules Verne and Robert Louis Stevenson, Kenneth Oppel, author of the best-selling Silverwing trilogy, creates an imagined world in which the air is populated by transcontinental voyagers, pirates, and beings never before dreamed of by the humans who sail the skies." (Amazon.com). 
I personally love all the novels by Kenneth Oppel and recommend them highly to my students.  I was fortunate enough to take my class a few years ago to the International Festival of Author's at Harbourfront Center to a live reading by Kenneth himself!  I am not sure who was more in awe, myself, or my 28 students!

I realize that this post is getting a little long winded, but I am passionate about reading aloud!  I will post pictures of my two newest favourites.  If you choose, you can do a little research of your own or take my word for it, they BOTH are excellent read alouds for the age group I teach!

Last Minute Checklist

Mr.Hughes has posted another linky for Share the Wealth Saturday.  His posts and others keep me inspired to create and share materials.  The other day on Pinterest (where else?) I saw a pin with a "one minute countdown checklist" created by Kelly on her blog Kelly's Knack.  I loved the idea, so I went to her blog to see if there was a download.  She did not have one so I decided to modify her idea to meet my own classroom needs, and make a poster version in PDF which I could share.

I plan to print this out before school starts, mount it on poster board, add some glitter (of course!), laminate it and mount it near the door (or the clock...Which do grade 6's look at more in the day?).  I am hoping that I can just POINT at the list at the end of the day, rather than asking each of the questions (and often running out of time or forgetting!)

If you would like to have your own FREE copy of this, you can find it at my TPT store HERE  for FREE (everything I have made has been free so far).  Be sure to check out Kelly's blog and Mr.Hughes' too while you are at it.  There is so much great stuff to see and share!

Educational Time Fillers

Over at 3-6 Free Resources I was reading about Ms. Fultz's educational time fillers.  We all have minutes in the day when we are finished a lesson quickly, or an assembly finishes early or we just want a change of pace.  A few years ago I discovered that having the game Mindtrap in my classroom is a lifesaver!   This game consists of over 500 classic puzzles, murder mysteries, conundrums and trick questions that will challenge the way your students think!

Here's how I use it in my classroom:
I assign the students to two (or more) relatively even teams.  (I use the old "Popsicle stick method" to do this quickly).  I allow the students to use dry erase boards (I bought at the local dollarama for $1 each!) to record information and questions they want to ask.  The questions can ONLY be answered with a YES OR NO. I read aloud the question and the students (in teams) must solve it.  I give them a few minutes in their teams to come up with ONLY questions first.  They may NOT try to solve the mystery until I decide they have explored the questioning enough.  You will be the judge of how much is "enough".

The students will encounter questions that look so easy, they will jump at the answer.  I don't let them just blurt it out!  They have to question! What they think is a clue is sometimes  really a trap. Sometimes they will confront the type of "head scratcher" that appears impossible to solve. It seems there just isn't enough information to go on -- until they hear the answer. Then they will realize they overlooked the obvious and it was easy after all. 

Students find much of the fun is watching the other team struggle with a question while they think they know the painfully obvious answer.  Each team asks questions that can be answered "yes" or "no," clearly narrowing in on the solution, until suddenly they are hit with the "aha!" as it clicks into place. 

At this point I have the team give ONE answer...they cannot shout out multiple answers.  They must come to consensus prior to answering.
Sometimes we get through a few questions in 10-15 minutes other times, we have to come back to the mystery later. 

THE KIDS LOVE IT!

My only caveat is to choose questions that are appropriate for your grade level.  I teach grade 6 gifted and I choose questions based on what I know my students would find interesting.  I think this game would be best for middle and high school students.  I have seen other versions for younger students in a "card deck" format. 

Sample Question: If a daddy bull weighs 1,200 pounds and eats twelve bales of hay each day, and a baby bull, who weighs 300 pounds eats three bales of hay each day, how much hay then should a mommy bull eat if she weighs 800 pounds? ANSWER: There's no such thing as a mommy bull.

Adventuresin6thgrade Giveaway

Adventures of a 6th Grade Teacher is having a great giveaway to celebrate having 700 (now more) followers!  I cannot imagine getting to that point.  I really like this blog and she has linked up with lots of other great blogs and bloggers to create the ultimate giveaway.  Why don't you hop on over and enter the giveaway yourself!