MySelf

There are so many possibilities for classroom jobs, and the kids just love them!  I always have one job for each student in my class!  I just added a bunch more jobs to my job chart set, and I added a jungle themed job chart by request!


Heres the jungle themed set... I had a blast making the textures for the jungle theme and it really made me think about making a whole jungle classroom theme! But I think I love my Dr. Seuss theme too much!


Here are the jobs I use in my classroom (and a few that I dont use since I dont have enough kids for all these jobs!):

• Line Leader
• Door Holders
• Table Helper
• Easel Eraser
• Sanitizer Helper
• Messenger: To bring the attendance folder (and anything else needed) to the office).
• Lights Helper
• Smartboard Helper: To turn on/off the smartboard when we use it.
• Homework Helper: To stamp the homework and hand out homework folders when its time to pack up.
• Librarian: To be sure that all of the books are in the right bin and are nice and neat.  Also, to monitor students while they trade in the books they took home to be sure that all of the books came back!
• Timer Helper: I love to use timers in my class!  I set timers for everything: 15 minutes for writing, 20 minutes for centers (through two separate timers... a 15 minute one for the kitchen/block center to play, then a 5 minute timer for them to clean up while everyone else plays for five more minutes).  The kids know that the second the time goes off its time to clean up and make their way to their seats! Its awesome!  I used to use a kitchen timer but just recently got the timer pictured.  Its expensive, but the kids just grab the red, green, or yellow timer when we start an activity.

This next one is my favorite!!!

• Action Cup Helper: This one of my kids favorites!  Each time we transition from our seats to the carpet, or visa versa, they pick an action from the cup.  Some of the actions are simple, like "hop on one foot," some are silly, like "pretend your legs are spaghetti," and some are student created, like "fly like a jet."  We use these actions so frequently that the kids could "read" them by November.
• Treasure Chest Helper: I use a color chart for the classroom.  At the end of the day, the students have the chance to get a prize from the treasure chest, a pencil, or a sticker.  The "treasure chest helper" sets up the prizes and makes sure that each student only gets one prize.
• Computer Technician: We have three computers in our classroom, and the students rotate to the computer to do an education program that tracks their progress for me.  We have so many random computer problems, and I showed the students how to fix each of the problems.  They know how to to fix everything... even how to close an unresponsive program (Control+Alt+Delete on PC or Command+Option+Esc on Mac)  The Computer Technician is the one who goes to fix the problem if a student cant fix it his/herself, and reports any unfixable problems to me. 
• Meteorologist
• Pencil Sharpener
• Caboose
• Secretary: To pick up the phone
• Writing Helper: To hand out “space jewels” (craft jewels from Michael’s which I have the students use to put spaces in between their words), and to hand out the Self-Check pieces from my writing set
• Water Monitor: To count while students drink water at the water fountain so they don’t take too long!
• Teacher Helper
• Trash Collector
• Lunch Helper
• Snack Helper
• Kindness Finder: To look for other students who are being kind and report it to the class
• Class Chorister: To lead the class while singing
• Chair Patrol: To check that all the chairs are pushed in
• Pet Feeder
• Supply Monitor
• Calendar Helper
• Paper Monitor
• Sports Equipment Monitor
• Substitute
• Waste Management
• Day Counter: To count how many days the class has been in school
• Attendance Helper
• Temperature Helper
• Weather Helper
• Classroom Experts: Ask these students about centers, classroom expectations, what to when you are stuck, etc, before going to the teacher.
• Student Council: Attend student council meetings and inform class about various school activities.
• Fire Marshal
• Noise Monitor
• Plant Caretaker
• Pet Manager

As part of  one of my classroom management routines, "The Most Points," I let one student per day pick their job!  Its a free routine that you can download over at TPT by clicking the picture below!

While some of you are winding down your school year, I still have two months to go... and I decided that a classroom redesign was in order.  Ive come across so many cute classroom themes online (jungle, wild west, pirates), but none of them quite worked with what I already had in my classroom.

Finally, it hit me... I needed to make give a classroom a Dr. Seuss theme, and since my favorite Seuss book is Cat in the Hat, I used that as my inspiration for my room!


Update 5/14/2013: For those of you who have been asking for the set, I have redesigned to abide by all copyright laws and reposted it here.  It looks different from the pictures below but its still super cute!




My first order of business was the "Word Wall" or actually, in my case, the "Word Window."  The background was already the perfect shade of blue, I just needed to add Sally and Nick!

Those blue and green blurred out papers at the bottom are the poems from the book "No More Letter of the Week" and a picture of the kid that was assigned that letter back in September/October.  If you havent seen the book yet, it totally revamped the way I teach phonics and it made a major difference for the kids!

I ended up doing this using my smart board!  I pulled up the image of Sally and Nick onto my computer, hung bulletin board paper up on the smart board, and traced the image.  Nice and easy!



Next, I needed to revamp my morning meeting resources.  I use a growing number line for how many days weve been in school, so I started with that.  I used my favorite font, and put red circles around the numbers you say when you count by fives, and "Cat in the Hat" hats on the numbers you say when you count by tens.  And yes, I re-did the numbers for the place value chart so the font matched!


After that, I redesigned my "Morning Helper" list.  Each day, one of my students teaches morning meeting.  I use a list posted on the wall as a rotating schedule to keep it fair for everyone!  My school has a poster machine that prints in color, so I was able to make this sign very large... to given you an idea of size, that scroll is a piece of legal paper!


Then, I re-did my months of the year sign!  Even though Im not in a bilingual class, the kids love learning other languages, so I teach them the months of the year in Spanish as well!  Again, this was printed on our wonderful poster machine!


Obviously, I needed to do a sign for the days of the week also.

My summer break hasnt quite started yet, but I know for many of you it is in full force!  I love all of the projects on Made It Monday and cant wait to link up once my summer break starts!  In the meantime, I started thinking about some major projects I did in the summers past, one of them was to completely organize my books.  I created a set of matching labels that even my preschoolers/kindergarteners could put away! 

These past few nights, I have been working hard on a MAJOR update to my classroom library organization set!  I have added 40 new labels, bring the set up to a whopping 214 labels, all for only $8.  So... if you havent started yet, why not take this summer to organize your classroom books! 

This new updated added the following 40 labels!



Here are some pictures of the labels! 




To see the full set of 214 labels, check out Teachers Pay Teachers!