Reading Centers - The management side of things

How many of you find yourself looking for new ways to manage your centers for math or reading?
This year I did something that I am really excited about! 

Over the summer, I was shopping at the Target dollar spot (of course!). I found 4 paper bins for a dollar. I picked them up not really knowing what I was going to use them for, but I knew they would come in handy at some point!

As it turns out, they came in handy in the best way! I decided to put a label on the front with a group number. I have 4 groups for reading. I bought an extra basket in case I need to change to 5 groups.

Every day I load the baskets with the materials each group needs for that day. When it is group time, my students come and get their baskets and get started on their first center. The great part is that there is no wasted time because all the materials are at their fingertips and when they are finished, they just leave their papers in their trays. The baskets allow me to differentiate materials a lot easier and the students aren't any the wiser. 

What do I put in the basket each day you ask? Let me tell you!

Each day I load up the basket with the things they need for each center. I also include a directions sheet with directions for each center. 

In each basket, students have a pencil pouch. This pencil pouch is the best! I have my classroom parents to thank for these for grabbing a helper card at Open House and donating 5 of these bad boys to our classroom!

In the pencil pouches you can find:

highlighters, post-its, mechanical pencils, tape, scissors, glue sticks, and their student group rate sheets. 

You can find the rate sheets here for free!: 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Student-Accountability-During-Reading-Groups-1666846

How do you deal with the paper management side of groups? Do you have a fool proof way that you operate your groups?

Have a great day!

Classroom reveal in 3...2...1

I got a lot of positive feedback on the facebook teacher's helpline about my classroom photos and a lot of questions, too! I thought I would share pictures and explain what each of my bulletin boards were used for in a new blog post! 

I'll start with these 2 bulletin boards in the picture below:

The board on the left is my reading challenge board. My school does a 3-5 Reading Challenge. Our students are challenged to read 20 minutes per day for an entire quarter. Students who make Reading Challenge, earn a prize. The prizes are supplied by the school and can include a bowling night, a trip to the local movie theatre, extra recess, etc. We do one prize per quarter! It is definitely a challenge!

The board on the right is my "Homework Tracker" board! I must say that I am absolutely head over heels in love with this board! My first 2 years of teaching, I really struggled with keeping track of students late and absent homework. Now we use a post it system that I found on pinterest here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/531776668473834691/

I modified it to fit my needs and it has worked great! 

How it works: When a student is absent they come back and grab their homework from the bin below the HW Tracker board. After they have a day or two to turn in their absent work, they get a post-it for each assignment they haven't turned in yet. I place it on the day they were absent, so that I can see when it needs to be turned in to get full credit.

Same goes for my late homework students. I give them a post-it with their assignment that is missing for that day and they place it on the day that it was due. We have a 2 week late policy before it becomes a 'ZERO' (I am more lenient than I ought to be). It allows me to see what assignments haven't been completed and how long they have been late/absent.

The next board is my "Early Finisher" board. I love this board! I haven't ever done an early finisher board before, so I am excited to see if it gets any use or if it is just taking up space. 

There are 4 different subjects on the board and each subject has a color associated with it for students. 
Math, Reading, Writing, Science/S.S.

Some of the tasks include: writing a story based on a picture that I have printed out and in a basket next to my reading corner, creating math problems that are related to our unit, researching a new place/another country and comparing and contrasting it to our state/town/country, and writing a book review that I will post for the class to see when they finish. Overall, I am so thrilled with how this board turned out. Now just to hope they use it and love it! 

This was by far the most popular of all my posts and the one that most people wanted details about! This bulletin board was inspired by one of my teacher friends after a workout session where I was picking her brain. She said that her school does a 4th grade 40 book challenge and she suggested I do '5th Grade 40'.
How it works:
My students each have a pocket stapled to the wall. The white basket on my bookshelf will be filled with those wonderful paint strips that you can get from the local home improvement store or Walmart. My students will fill out their strip with the name of their book, the author's name, and then on the back their name so they can get credit in case it falls out of their pocket.
Students will be rewarded for hitting 40 books at the end of the year with a special treat.
The question I am most interested to find out is how I manage to make sure students are truly reading the books and not just trying to trick me. If you have any ideas on how to solve that problem, please leave me a comment!! 

My Math Mania bulletin board gets changed out throughout the year to reflect our math unit at the time. As you can see, we begin our year with place value!

My behavior marble jar and my behavior cards. 

My marble jar might just be one of my most favorite things of all time. I've had this thing since I started teaching 4 years ago and it is still going strong. Surprising, fun fact: this marble jar was for sale at a teacher store to be used for a 100 days count down. I thought it was a great idea to take the marble jar idea and be able to show a more visual picture to students. My students love to be able to see how many marbles they need before they get their prize.
They usually only fill it up 2-3 times a year, but when they do, I buy them all pizza! The second prize is an ice cream party!

The How Are You? Board is my easy behavior board. Students who are not following our class rules will have to flip a card (it is much like the clip system, but with cards.) It has worked for 4 years, but I will say that I have other positive rewards that help. I plan to do another post about my incentive stickers.

My favorite new board! I know I keep saying that :)

Students get to submit facts that they research and I will choose one a week/day (haven't quite decided). They must give me the fact and also the resource and tell me why it is a reliable resource and why we can believe it!

And last but not least, my I Can bulletin board. It was a quick way to cover up some nasty whiteboard that has long since peeled off. This is my go to board for my students to see just what we are learning in 5-3!