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One of my lovely followers requested that I redesign my job chart based on a black and gold glittery hollywood theme... and I love how it came out!  My students love that I have jobs for each and every student!  This mega set of 62 jobs is sure to have enough jobs for all of your students.  And... if it's missing a job that you want, just email me at aturntolearn@gmail.com and I'll add it for you! Here's a preview of some of the jobs... the little space on the edge is for you to clip a clothespin.  Each and every job has a picture to go along with it, and the picture has a crisp, white background. I hope you enjoy it!

I've heard about the hand signals that teachers all over use, and I absolutely loved the idea, but I wanted to do something a bit different with my class.  I thought back to when I was in elementary school and one of my teachers taught us the pledge in sign language.  I have a second cousin who is deaf and speaks sign language, and I thought it was the coolest thing to learn something that I could use to "communicate" with him.  So... it hit me!  I decided to teach my class sign language! We learned so many different words, and my students constantly asked if we could go to the website Signing Savvy to learn more!  It totally revolutionized my classroom.  Suddenly, everything was sign language.  No longer did students call out "Is it time to erase the board yet?" Instead, they used sign language! Click the pictures below to see an animated video to learn how to sign each of the words, then download the poster at the bottom of the page to post in your ...

For some reason it drives me crazy how sloppy all the cords around the computers are... and the headphones are always the worst.  They get tangled, they fall down and somehow they get bent and crooked!  For a while, I had my students put their headphones over the computer, but that just made the computer screen get greasy and sweaty, so that habit didn't last too long! Well... I finally had an epiphany: jumbo command hooks! I bought the large command hooks off Amazon - a 3 pack for less than $7... not too bad!  They've held up for about a week now and I love them!  You can click the picture below to see which hooks I bought for my classroom... they seem to be the perfect size for our jumbo headphones!

Do your students ever forget that there's a spelling test tomorrow, or do they forget to bring in their homework?  For some reason... mine always seems to forget that they need to bring their snack from home!  Well... I've been thinking about doing this for a while but I finally did it... I came up with a set of "reminder" bracelets to help them remember all the important things they need to do at night! You can grab the spelling test labels for free below!  Click the pictures below to load higher quality versions of the pictures, then save and print them! I originally got the idea of using bracelets from KindergartenWorks .  I absolutely love the set of freebie behavior bracelets that Leslie offers... and I knew my kids would love them!  As the school year started and my class was forgetting simple things (like reading every night), I just knew that adapting her idea would be the perfect solution! ( source ) Be sure to check out her freebie and and follow her...

This idea is actually a gem that one of my students thought of a few years ago!  One of my classes' favorite YouTube videos was this one... "If You're a Boy" from Harry Kindergarten.  Well... my kids were chatty one day and I said "If you're a boy zip your lips."  One of my girls said "If you're a boy, a boy, if you're a boy zip your lips!"  And so a new tradition was born! When my kids get chatty, all I do is start to sing the song! If they're extra loud, I have them do actions that will get the other students attention (e.g. ones that make them move more or make more noise) such as: pat your legs, jump up and down or clap your hands. If there's only one or two students chatting, I usually do more silent action, such as zip your lips, fold your hands. I actually also use this to get my students to clean up at the end of their writing period.  I break it down step by step for them (since they're kindergarten), so I'll sa...

The number one way I have found to stop kids from fidgeting in class is to let them get all of their energy out another way! I make it a point sporadically throughout the day to do exercise songs in class!  It makes a MAJOR difference it getting kids to sit still the rest of the time! I have a lot of exercise activities that I do with them that are academic in nature, but sometimes we just need a brain break!  I found a ton of songs on YouTube that are just perfect for this! I used my little YouTube trick below to save these videos into a folder on my computer so I can pull them up easily on the Smart Board.  Before you say it... I will: " When am I supposed to have time to do this in class!?  My day is already full! " Most of these songs are 2-3 minutes long... and I know that when my kids fidget I sometimes spend more than 2-3 minutes to get them back on task... so you're not taking extra time to do this, you're just re-purposing your time! Anyway... here are my ...

My students always LOVE reading all of the No, David books by David Shannon, and I came up with a really fun activity for them to go along with the books... a puppet!  It's the perfect activity to introduce classroom management at the beginning of the school year! I included 10 different writing options... perfect for all of the elementary grades: David’s Body – without any text David’s Body – with Name/Date on arms and room for an illustration David’s Body – with large primary writing lines and room for a picture David’s Body – with medium primary writing lines and room for a picture David’s Body – with small primary writing lines and room for a picture David’s Body – with writing lines and room for a picture David’s Body – with large primary writing lines, no room for a picture David’s Body – with medium primary writing lines, no room for a picture David’s Body – with small primary writing lines, no room for a picture David’s Body – with writing lines, no room for a picture ...

I've been meaning to blog about classroom management for a while, but I just haven't gotten around to it!  This week I am determined to knock off a few ideas from my To Do list and post some fun items! Like many other teachers, I use a clip chart in my class.  I updated my clip chart and uploaded it to TPT for only $2.  And... it includes a parent letter to explain the chart to parents.  Check it out by clicking the picture below. I won't go into too many details on the chart above, but I do want to take some time to talk about one of my FAVORITE classroom routines... the most points! This is one of my favorite routines because it’s really fast, and really easy! We all know how much kids love positive reinforcement and praise… it’s so easy to say “I love how so-and-so is sitting” And they just love getting little tangible items, like pencils and stickers. Now, what if we combine these two ideas, and each time you praised them get got something that was tangibl...