Bright Ideas: Where is my class list?

Happy May!  I can't believe that the school year is almost over, we are so close to summer, and some of you have already started thinking ahead to the fall.  136 teacher bloggers have teamed up again to bring you more bright ideas for the classroom that are low cost, time saving and absolutely amazing!

For my bright idea this month, I'm telling you about a small idea that has helped me out so much!  Admit it, we have all been at the play ground and can't figure out which child is still missing with so many children out there, the fire alarm goes off while students are in the bathroom and you don't have your class role with you -- YIKES!  Well I have found a quick and easy way to keep it with you at all times!  

Many teachers are required to wear a lanyard all day for identification around school at all times.  Well, what better way to keep your students names with you than to put it on your lanyard.  Please excuse this picture from my first year of teaching on this ID card....

On the back of my lanyard I took a sticky note and wrote all of my students names, they are in alphabetical order by last name.  This way, when I need to line them up quickly and in alphabetical order for things like a fire drill, I am able to do so and know exactly which child is missing so that my assistant and I can identify if they are absent, in speech, bathroom, or wherever else students get pulled to be during the school day.  

After I wrote all of my students names on the sticky note, I placed it on the back of my ID card, stuck it into a laminating sheet, and ran it through the laminator.  After I ran it through the laminator I cut it out of the sheet leaving a little room around the edges, and ran it through 2-3 more times to make sure that it was sealed, and poked a hole with my lanyard so that ti would stay.  This is my tag at the end of the year, so you can see that it is rather beat up, but it has held up, and when I have felt that it has gotten too loose, I just throw it through my laminating machine again to tighten it back up!  The best part is that this can be used year after year because it hasn't stuck to the tag so in August I can simply do it again.  

If you enjoyed this bright idea, please consider joining me on Facebook, Teachers Pay Teachers or Pinterest for more great ideas.

For more bright ideas more than 130 different bloggers, please browse through the link-up below and choose a topic/grade level that interests you. Thanks for visiting!

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Teacher Appreciation Week Giveaway

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week y'all!  I can not believe that we have made it this far into the school year -- we have less than 4 weeks left.  To celebrate another year coming to a close, Amy from Teaching in Blue Jeans has put together a Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop and Giveaway!

Amy has put together a giveaway and blog hop of 55 Kinder/First Grade BEST SELLING products for you to win!  The products that are in this bundle are absolutely fantastic, many of which I use in my own classroom.

I am here to tell you about the best seller that I have in this giveaway.  My best seller is my Addition Mega Pack.  I created this pack for the students in my room to master addition and subtraction as well as number writing to 100.

The CCSS standards for Kindergarten addition and subtraction had me quite nervous about the success my students would have to be able to add within 5 fluently.  But this pack has helped my students excel and meet or exceed the standards!  

Included in the pack are 3 different sets of fact cards, one with the missing answer, and two others with missing addends.  Below are some examples...

The next feature of this pack is the Clip a Sum activity.  Students receive a card and a clothes pin and clip the answer.  On the back of the card I put a sticker where the correct answer is so that the students can self check.  

This pack also includes sheets for writing numbers to 100, with help and without help!  You can see some examples below.

You can read a full description of this product here.

Continue on The Best for the Best Teacher Appreciation Blog Hop by clicking the picture below.  Jessica from the Littlest Scholars is a dear friend of mine and has some fabulous products and is a great National Board Certified Teacher!  I hope that you will love her products as much as I do!  If you continue scrolling to the bottom, you will find the giveaway to enter... Happy Hopping and good luck :)

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Wonderful Wish List Linky

Hey y'all!  

Who doesn't love a good sale, and celebrating teachers?  TpT is having a site wide sale this week to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week and many stores will be up to 28% off.  The wonderful Tina from Tina's Teaching Treasures  has organized a linky to showcase some items on our wish lists.

The first item that I am moving from my wish list to my cart is Flipping for Phonics Guided Reading Flip Books from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits.  

These flip books look so amazing for my high group of kinders for enrichment and provide such a fun and cute way to get the students making the correct sounds and ability to visualize the letters when they work on their writing.  I am so excited to make these and put them to use in my classroom after purchasing them!

The second item that I'm going to purchase is from Jessica at The Littlest Scholars.  She has created a wonderful letter sound tutor with her product All About the Alphabet.  

This pack comes as an audio file and a PDF so that you can download the listening center into your iTunes and place it onto an iPod, iPad or other listening device.  These can also be burned onto CDs and placed in a CD player for students to use.  Each letter has a book to go along with it that will teach your students to write, recognize, say the letter name and sound.  Each sound clip lasts about 5 minutes and can be playing 2-3 times during centers for your students.  You can see where I blogged about her Teach Me Sight Words here. 

The last pack that I will be purchasing off of my wish list comes from the fabulous Deanna Jump!  Her Nonfiction Interactive Reading Journals are CCSS aligned and will be the perfect addition to both reading and writing in my classroom!

No matter the standard you are teaching for Informational Text K-2 this pack will have it!  I am so excited get my students thinking more critically by using this pack and letting them really comprehend the nonfiction stories that we read in class.

The last item for today's link up doesn't come from my wish list, but it is the item from my store that has been THE MOST wish listed!  A few months ago after searching high and low for morning work that works for my students I just couldn't find anything perfect, so I decided to create my own and this product was born...

My Morning Work: The Bundle is by far the best deal.  During the sale you will be able to score this bundle to have year round morning work for $7.20!  This bundle is not yet completed, but it will never be this cheap again!  Each month is CCSS aligned activities for your students to complete while you are running around your classroom in the morning.  Each pages includes reading and math, and one day a week your students will draw a picture and write a story.  This pack currently includes February, March, April, May & August and the other packs will be uploaded soon!  You can check out each month's pack by clicking on the month above.  

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A birthday celebration!

Y'all I can't believe that it is already MAY! I can not believe that we are done with school at the end of this month, and I also can't believe that I will be 26 this month! A lot of really fun things are happening for me this year, including 2 best friend weddings, MY wedding, and who else knows what other excitement is to come along. I am celebrating my birthday and the excitement of this year with a HUGE giveaway of over $150 worth of products from some of my blogging friends, and a $20 gift card to my own store. You can enter my rafflecopters below for each of the bundles, and you can pin and post images on your facebook/pinterest for extra entries each day!

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Thank you for helping me celebrate my birthday!