Freebie {Editable Clip Chart Reflection Sheet}

Love the Clip Chart? Me too! I honestly found it invaluable in my classroom! Kids loved it, I loved it, parents loved it, and my admin loved it! Win! Win! Win!

One thing I struggled with in the beginning was how to make kids take ownership of their poor choices. This form was the ticket. When ever a child continued to make poor choices and ended the day on the lower part of the chart, they had to fill out one of these and have it signed by a parent or guardian. One form helped them to process their choicces and to notify parents. Love it!

The other thing I loved and the kids loved was the positive note home when they ended on Outstanding. :)

This is by far my most popular download on TpT! Get both pieces here free! The reflection sheet is even editable. :)

The BIG TPT B2S Sale: What I'm loving this year!

KJ

What teacher doesn't love a good sale? I mean we already spend a ton on our classrooms, so a sale means we can get more for our money! That's win in my book! Monday and Tuesday are the TPT (teacherspayteachers) Back to School Sale. You can get some of the best prices all year. I had a really hard time narrowing down my favorites. I want #allthethings. My wish list is definitely jam packed. :) But here are my top favorites this year:

1. Math Centers from Elementary Shenanigans

Can i just say that Hope King is a genius. I truly had a love/hate relationship with Math Centers. Loved the ability to do small group instruction, HATED all the prep work and lost pieces. Not to mention how complicated it was to differentiate and not had a bunch of bored kiddos! The other day I had the opportunity to watch Hope's Periscope about her centers. OMG, guys! Seriously, she has solved the Center craziness. She has truly simplified the process with her A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. centers. No joke these are life changing!! One set of centers can get you through the ENTIRE year! Or if you're feeling fancy you can chose to use her monthly themed centers. All you need is laminated file folders,student folders, velcro, her response sheets, number cards (a deck or the ones included in the packet), and readily available manipulatives. No tiny pieces to cut, laminate and use. No leveled activities to find and use. One center= #allthelevels. Brilliant!

You can check out her centers on TPT here, and definitely check out her blog here for the videos on how she sets it all up.

Side-note: If I could afford it I would quite literally buy everything Hope makes, her stuff is that good. I really, really had a hard time narrowing it down to just one.

2. Step into Second Grade's Key Word Kiddos

Umm seriously how cute are these?And bonus they are super helpful. A lot of my kids always had trouble deciphering word problems, struggling to choose the right operation. So in the past I had an anchor chart with this info posted on my wall. But how much more fun are these! Love them! I have used Amy's products in my room for years, I love her!

You can check them out on TPT here, and definitely check out her blog here for the details on how she sets it all up.

3.  A Teacher's Plan Book by The Teacher Wife

Keeping everything organized is always a challenge. While I love the look of teacher planners, especially the Erin Condren ones {drool}, they never really worked for me. And the price. Ouch. Something totally customizable works much better for me. So I've stuck with binders the past few years. I've gone through a few different setups, but I absolutely love this binder insert set by Lindsey (The Teacher Wife). Exactly what I need, easy to print and a cute simple design. LOVE IT!

You can check it out on TPT here, and definitely check out her blog here for more cuteness.

4. One Extra Degree's Picture This Writing Prompts

I'm always looking for early finisher activities that are meaningful. These picture writing prompts fit the bill. They are adorable and look like so much fun. The kiddos are going to love writing stories about what is happening in these pictures!

You can check it out on TPT here, and definitely check out her blog here for even more writing ideas.

5. Super in Second! by Babbling Abby

The first week of school can be super crazy, all the supplies to unpack, all the kids to meet, all the beginning of the year assessments, all the... well I'm sure you know ALL ABOUT IT. Making the first week memorable and enjoyable, sets the tone for the rest of the year. This packet is perfect for starting the year off right. It is jam packed with fun activities that will help create community and an atmosphere of fun. I love everything Abby makes! It was super hard to choose just one!

You can check it out on TPT here, and definitely check out her blog here for all the cuteness that is Abby's life.

So there you have it my top picks for the TPT B2S sale... What's in your cart?

Maximizing your Time, Teacher Tip #3

I had planned to share this last week, but my internet was so poor I couldn't upload the video. Thankfully that finally got sorted out, so here it is...

As I've shared before, we teachers have a lot to do and very little time to do it in. One of my least favorite things to do is to grade work and input it into my electronic gradebook. I'm always worried about losing my grades, so I like to have them in at least three different places (my work computer, eGradebook, and my flash-drive). Our school server crashed 3/4 of the way through my first year and I lost 90% of my files...lesson learned. Even though it's important, it's a pain to record things multiple times. Enter my saving grace...GradeCam.

I first found out about GradeCam by accident when entering data into my benchmarking program. They had an ad about how you could the both programs together. I was intrigued and followed the link. What I found was pure teacher gold... A cheap program that uses a tablet, web cam, or document camera to scan bubble sheets. I immediately signed up for a free trial. I have been hooked ever since.


Our school uses the tests provided with our curriculum for all subjects. 90% of these test are multiple choice, and our Benchmarks are also multiple choice. I know there's a huge debate over multiple choice tests, I don't want to get into that. I use what I'm required to use, and I supplement with other types of assessment. So please don't judge.

Since the majority of my assessments are multiple choice GradeCam is perfect for me. Each time I need to administer a test, I log in to my GradeCam account and print off bubble sheets. I can choose to print them with or without student information once I have setup my class. I always print an extra blank bubble sheet for myself, which I use to make a key. Here's a little video I made for you guys explaining how I use GradeCam, bear with me it is my first ever video...

One thing I forgot to mention in the video is that in GradeCam TeacherPlus (the paid version) you can correlate each question with a standard. This enables you to get standards based reports for each assessment. It's a huge help to those of us who do standards based grading. In my case, our report cards have traditional grade reporting with a condensed version of standards based grade reporting.

I also forgot to say that you can export your grades with the hot key as many times as you want. Very helpful when you keep grades in multiple places like I do!

Like I said in my video I definitely recommend the paid version, it's only $9.99 per month. For the amount of time I save, the amount of useful data, and the ease of use,  I think it is well worth that price. By the way, I have no affiliation with GradeCam. It just happens to be software that I really love. If you sign up using my link below we both get 3 free months of the full GradeCam TeacherPlus version!  And if you recommend the program to other teachers you get 3 additional free months of GradeCam TeacherPlus for each teacher that sign ups with your link and they get 3 months free too! It's a win for both of you!

If you'd like use my referral link to get 3 free months of GradeCam Plus click here.

Happy Grading!

Teacher Tip #2

Sorry for not posting sooner, but I've been having serious internet issues. Hopefully it'll be fixed soon, because we're sick of paying for internet that doesn't work most of the time. Unfortunately we don't even have the option of switching service providers, since there is only one company that serves our neighborhood!

Anyhow, I've got working internet now so I thought I'd take advantage even thought it's midnight! Oh the joys of staying up late in the summer. :)

I promised I'd bring you some tips that have helped me to be more productive and spend less time doing busywork. So without further ado, I'd like to introduce Remind101.com.

(source)

Remind101 is a free service for teachers, which allows us to text and email parents while keeping our phone number private. I love it because it required very little setup on my part. I simply signed up and printed a parent flyer from the site to send home. Parents used the information on the flyer to sign themselves up. Every time I wanted to send an update to parents I would log on, type it and click send. And bam it was sent to parents based on their preference (text or email). Easy-peasy. Even better you can chose to immediately send a message or schedule it to send at a specific time in the future. So if you remember something at 11 pm, you can schedule it to send during the following day instead.

I used the service to remind parents about special events, field trips, changes to assignments, and reminders to look for important papers sent home. I could see this service working really well in secondary grades, where students tend to have their own phones. Teens love texting, so it would be a very relevant way to get their attention.

This summer I found some great new features that I'm excited to use next year. The first is a new app, which I'll use to send messages from my iPad. I'm one of the last people on earth not to have a smartphone, but if you have one you could use Remind101's app straight from your phone (iOS and Android). Another great feature I'm excited about is the ability to add a widget to my class website. The widget will display the latest messages I've sent to the class, right on our website.

I highly encourage you to check it out. Parents loved getting updates on the devices they preferred. I loved not having to give out my number to text parents. I made that mistake once... I gave my number out for emergencies only during a field trip, I even specified that it was for emergencies only. Well guess who got a call at 8 pm on Wednesday the following week asking about homework. No joke. Lucky for them I don't answer calls from unknown numbers, because I'm not sure how I would have reacted.

Thanks Remind101, protecting my personal information! If you want to learn more about the awesome-ness that is Remind101, click here!