Monday Made It - Posters Posters Posters

I am going to try to link up with a Linky for the very first time. Wish me luck! I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics "Monday Made it". Lets just hope I do it right!

As a brand new teacher, I basically am starting completely from scratch, so I have tons of projects planned before school starts. I still have to iron out exactly how I want my Classroom Management to work, and which procedures I want to use.

I don't even have the rooms to my classroom yet (I get those tomorrow!), so for now I am just working on posters that I know for sure I will be using in my class, and that I can easily make from home. 

None of these are laminated yet, which I need to do. Can you believe this? This newbie teacher has never laminated a single thing in her life! Haha, I really need to figure out how it works and get on that!

1. Stop Light Comprehension

        I found this idea on Pinterest and absolutely love it. I am a huge fan of formative assessments as well as asking students to reflect on their own understanding. This is such a convenient way of doing that. In my student teaching placement, I used to sometimes give out short 3 question quizzes after certain important lessons in order to determine how my students were understanding what I was trying to teach. But that resulted in a lot of paperwork. 

        I am going to be using this as an Exit Slip System. With this new poster, I will be able to hand out sticky notes, give one problem, and students will self-reflect by placing their sticky note on one of the three lights. I feel that this will give me way more information. Two students might both get the answer right, but if one of them puts their sticky on the Yellow Light, I will know that maybe she/he is not that confident with the skill and would appreciate some more practice.

2. Noise-0-Meter

          Again, something I saw on Pinterest. My resident teacher last year had an actual stoplight with flashing lights and everything, which she had purchased at a teacher store. But, since I am just starting out and there are so many things I need to buy, I couldn't justify such a purchase so I made a poster instead.

          This project isn't quite done. Once I buy clothes pins, I am going to glue a paper saying "We are using our" which will then be clipped to the level that the class is supposed to be at.

3. Cluedo Whole-class Incentive!

       I am most excited about this, because it is completely my own idea! At my school, the entire school does a theme each year...unlike other places where just the teachers do their own individual theme in the classroom. This year, the theme is "Mystery/Investigation".

       My normal Whole-class incentive is "PAT points". The class gets points for good transitions, working well and quietly etc., and once they reach 50 points they get to choose a 30 minute activity of their choice (for instance, Capture the Flag, watch a movie etc.). Well, I got the brilliant idea to pair this system up with our school's theme.

       Here's how it is going to work:

Students earn PAT points as usual by getting rewarded for good behavior. However, instead of working towards 50 points, students are trying to earn clues to solve the mystery. Every 5 points, I will give out one new clue about either the suspects, murder weapon, or crime scene. When the students solve the crime, they will be rewarded for their detective work with a 30 minute activity of their choice. Of course, I am going to rig the clues so that its going to take them about 10-15 clues to solve the mystery (i.e. 50 points just like my old system). I really think that the kids are going to be excited about this, and can't wait to implement it!

Ok, well that is it! Tomorrow I meet with my principal and get my classroom keys. I will make sure to get into my classroom and take some "Before" pictures!