Florida Blog Hop FREEBIE!

Glad that you were able to join us for the third annual Orange Ya' Glad it's a Blog Hop!

I am the

If you have hopped with us in the past, some things will be familiar, and some things will be new!

This year, all of our bloggers are focusing on FREE tips or ideas that they can share with you to get your school year off to a great start.  Some ideas will have a freebie, others might just be a stand alone concept.  The idea is to try and share things that will solve problems and create a happy and stress free first few weeks!

Let's get started!

Since I will not be going into the classroom this year, I wanted to share just a quick classroom management strategy/tip that I use for dismissal. 

One thing I always worry about is dismissal. The school I have been teaching at has 800+ kids every year.  There are seven kindergarten classroom with 20+ kids in each room.  That's a lot of babies walking around not knowing where they're going!!! Talk about stressing me out!

My solution: transportation labels that HANG!  A quick, easy visual of how the kids dismissed from school daily.  To create, I simply printed on cardstock and laminated {for durabilily...highly suggest}, stapled to a long piece of ribbon that I hot glued to my classroom door.  I then wrote the kiddos names on clothespins, attached them where they needed to go and VIOLA, that's it!

The clothespins make it easy for transportation changes that occur throughout the year.

If a student rides a certain color bus, I simply write their name in that color.  I.e...if Stacy rides red bus, then I write her name in RED.  If a student goes home differently on different days, I give them two clips and color code it based on the days.  For instance, I labeled all M,W,F blue and T, TH green.  I chose those two colors because we do not have a blue or green bus. 

To help you out, I am offering this little guy for FREE!  Simply click the image below to snag your copy!!

I also stumbled upon this bad boy for free and plan on attaching them to the kiddos the first week until they are familiar with dismissal and naviagting through the school.  Click the image below to head to A Modern Teacher's blog to read all about how she is going to use them and to snag her freebie! 

Thanks, April!

I love having share time in the primary grades. 

But when I first started, I didn't want the kids to just bring something in, talk about it for a second and that be it.  I wanted a little learning and social skills applied to this beloved time of day.

So I came up with the Mystery Bag!

   

How it works:

I send home a black, drawstring, canvas bag with my printed (and laminated) direction sheet and paper for the clues inside.

Students are asked to bring something they wish to share, but it must fit in the bag. They are to tell no one from school about their item in the Mystery Bag.

Students come up with three mystery clues for the item they are bringing. 

When it is our designated 'share time' the student then presents the class with the first clue.  If someone has a guess, they raise their hand. Everyone has to be listening carefully so that we don't have the same guess more than once! (They also only get one guess per clue)

After a couple guesses from the class, the student gives the next clue.  This continues until the mystery has been solved! 

We then 'open the floor' for questions about the shared item.

The kids always love this time of day and it's a bonus for you, as students are working on so many different life skills; social and communicative!

Click below to snag your FREE copy!

We will be having an Instagram giveaway again!  At the bottom of each post, there will be a letter.  Mine is...

 

 The letters all work together to give you the name of a type of orange!  This year is a bit tricky...it's a two word name!  **Hint: Start at Tamara's blog and going through will give you the right answer!** 

Once you've solved the puzzle...take a picture of the answer.  

Post it on instagram and hashtag it with #orangehop2015.  We love original ideas...so, do something fun with your image!

We will go through the pictures and select a winner!

  

Next up... a blogger I love! I seriously can spend hours reading tips and tricks on her site!

The wonderful Amy from the 24/7 Teacher!