Kagan, Open House, & Bulletin Boards

Oh, friends. I am tired….and the children have not even arrived – ha! I have been a bad blogger and blog commenter, and I’m sorry. I have been better at the whole Blog Facebooking thing. Hopefully this weekend, I can get back into my groove. 🙂 In the meantime, here is a round-up of my week.

So, Kagan is HUGE in my district….like every instructional person (teachers, collaborators, etc) is Kagan trained. In June, they flew Tom (a Kagan trainer from Florida) to teach all of the new hires about Kagan, and it was AMAZING. From learning new chants and cheers to awesome ideas for getting my kids up and about, I’m pumped. So, this week I spent some time getting my room Kagan ready. My goal is to write more about Kagan this week, sharing some first-week resources 🙂 [Note – Kagan is all about cooperative learning – not group work – with frequent modeling, celebrations, community building, and brain breaks…sounds fun, right?]

Also, I added my Kagan labels to desks. Kagan is about providing structures that allow students to collaboratively learn. These structures hold every student accountable and eliminate ‘hogs’ and ‘logs’ in the learning process (Tom’s words…not mine). In my desk arrangement of 6, 1s&2s, 3s&4s, and 5s&6s are shoulder partners and 1s&6s, 2s&3s, 4s&5s are face partners (remember, I did a horseshoe shaped arrangement). Since it may take friends little while to remember what number they are or if they are an A or a B, I added to circles to make it easier. Plus, I do not want to spend the entire day hearing, “Am I an A or a B?” You can grab your own labels here from Google Docs. If you are looking for an editable file or colored circles to match your classroom, you may grab them here!

I made my Kagan team tubs this week, too, complete with extra pencils and pens (so students do not have to get out of their seats), think pad, post-its, and index cards for exit slips. Each week one of our classroom jobs – ‘Team Tubs Manager’ will be in charge of keeping these tubs stocked and in working order…one of the great things about 5th grade! You can grab the labels here in my Black, White, and a Hint of Yellow Organization Pack.

Open House was last night and it was positively lovely. I had about 16 of my 30 fifth graders show up (which I considered a victory for 5th grade), and they were great! It was so fun to see them gravitate towards our classroom library saying things like, “Oh, I’ve read this one. Do you have the next one?” or “I want to read this!” *Sweet victory* 🙂

As parents walked in, I had the above screen greeting them. Then, they traveled about the room completing different stations (community supplies sort, individual supplies sort, newsletter sign-up, and Scholastic Book Club sign-up). Since my 5th graders don’t go to library, I am going to push Scholastic Book Orders (something the 5th grade has not done for a while), so I set out this sign explaining the book orders to parents and asked they create an online account. I think 12 out of my 15 families set up accounts – woohoo! Parents were thrilled to hear about the Dollar Book each month.

Just in the nick of time for Open House I finished my hallway bulletin board for displaying work…an iPad themed board – each student has an iPad display space with a sheet protector! It’s nice and bright, and low upkeep – woohoo.

Lastly, did you hear friends?? The HUGE TPT sale is this Sunday and Monday – woohoo! I am super-duper pumped. I have four things already in my cart, and oodles more in my Wishlist. Plus, everything in my store will be 28% percent off. Now would be the perfect time to grab those Genre Posters or stock up on Primary Grammar Resources!