Take Home Folder Prep

Take home folders, communication folders, Friday folders. We have so many different names for the tool we use to send home important messages, notes, forms to our parents. My take home folders are one of my most useful yearlong tool in my classroom to communication with parents. Because of our school colors and a campus wide initiative, red is our go to/preferred folder color. There are so many different ways to put one together. Whether you're a new teacher or need a little refresher, I'm sharing with you today my take home folder.

1. Sheet Protectors- Our kindergarten supply list includes sheet protectors, but I like to purchase a set during the end of the year or in the summer to have these ready before the first day of school.

2. Ziploc Bags- I love Ziploc bags and my favorite type are the slider quart sized bags. There are just so many wonderful uses for Ziploc bags! Below I'll share my DIY pouches for my take home folder.

3. Labels- I am the #labeleverything type so I stock up on Avery labels from Amazon during the summer and have plenty on hand to label what I need. You just can't beat the price and bonus if you have Prime Shipping!

4. Two Pocket Folders- Any folder may work, but because these folders are used daily and travel back and forth from school to home, it's important for me to invest in sturdy ones. I love these Avery Two-Pocket Folders from Amazon. (I'm not affiliated with Amazon btw.) I maybe have to replace one the entire year because every now and then you get a little friend that was rough with their folder.

Set the bar early and make it clear how important this folder is for the student, the parent, and the teacher. I've received feedback from parents that praise the folder because they know their child can misplace things. And this folder keeps everything organized for them at home.

Some teachers use the LEFT/RIGHT labels or Back at School/Keep at Home labels. Choose what works for you, but label the areas in the folders so parents know what's expected.

As parents open the folder they immediately see on the left side any important forms that need to be returned to school. Most of the time these are things that require a signature or to be filled out by a parent, like my Student Information Sheets. (Click here to see my student information printables.) On the right side I like to include the Keep At Home Label so that parents know any papers on this side don't need to be kept in the folder or at school. This side usually includes school flyers, lunch menus, classroom newsletters. (Click here to see my monthly newsletter thats picture above.)

Keep it simple! Don't overwhelm your students or your parents with too much information or management in the folder. I use a clip chart system and I do have some parents that want a report of their child's behavior. For durability, inside a sheet protector, I use these behavior calendars.

With the quart sized Ziploc Bags, I use a hole puncher to add holes to the bottom of the bag and insert in the folder prongs. Throw a label on top of what's to be included inside and manage anything from money, notes, and even Box Tops!

I have planning right away in the morning, and when I do have a chance, I do a quick check to see if I have any important notes from a parent in the pouch. The pouch is great for little friends for field trip payments and book fair days. It really helps to avoid loose money in backpacks or pockets.

The first days of school is a lot of modeling on how to take care of our take home folder, where to put it in the mornings (baskets by my table for quick checks), and putting it in our backpacks to share with our parents. It's repetitive but sooooo worth it because eventually most of the kiddos are independent in managing the folders.

You can find all of these labels by clicking the picture below. There are more options to suit your class. Options in English or Spanish and English/Spanish.

Thanks for checking out my take home folder. Stay tuned, I'll be sharing with you my Take Home Binder soon that includes little readers, sight word practice, and more!

Bulletin Boards

Hello there! I'm linking up with Angie from Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd! I love how they have started monthly linky parties with specific collaboration posts to support one another #2getherwearebetter. 

A goal of mine this year is to take quality pictures. Sometimes it's easier to snap a picture with my cell phone but I'm promising myself to put in effort to use a digital camera when possible to improve the quality of my pictures that I want to share. 

I've had the luck of being in a portable with limited walls to moving to a classroom with curtain walls, you know those icky panel walls that fold like an accordion. Yup, basically no sturdy wall space for bulletin boards. 

Tip #1: Use doors as walls. Never fear, doors are dear. That is until your doors are not able to hold tape. For some reason my closet doors had some special film over them that anything I tried putting up would slide off. I tried duct tape, masking tape, super glue, double sided tape, packing tape, even hot glue. Other classrooms in my hall didn't have this problem, lucky me.

I was able to use yarn tied and taped from inside the door to finally hold up some things. I added a pocket chart to change out vocabulary words. Some parts of my doors "accepted" hot glue. And with the help of a command hook and lots and lots of hot glue later, I was even able to add my slightly heavy behavior clip chart made of cardstock.

Tip #2: Add some width to your wall. Yay for bulletin board, booooo to it being itty bitty. With a glue gun and some fabric I was able to make that small bulletin board wider. You can't even tell that the space under the fabric is whiteboard, and it's very easy to remove when you need to. Comes right off the whiteboard.

Tip #3: Laminate and go with fadeless paper. I like to use a combo of fadeless paper and fabric in my classroom. I stock up on fadeless paper at the beginning of the year with some coupons. It's a good investment if you plan on keeping your walls the same year after year. 

I like to laminate things that I know will be up all year long like student work displays, I just add to it, never really moving anything. This keeps it sturdy and I don't have to worry about the paper tearing or fading as I update the wall.

Tip #4: Student Friendly. I know sometimes I'm guilty of wanting cutesy things up. But I try to remember that ultimately what I put up needs to really benefit my little learners. Promote THEIR work, support THEIR learning with visual aids like vocabulary words, anchor charts you create WITH THEM. I know my students love to see when a sentence/idea they created or shared is added to our big chart paper. They gain a sense of pride that their idea is valued in our classroom. And I love when they refer back to their learning when the chart paper is displayed in the classroom.

And there it is friends! I'm in the process of planning my bulletin board wall spaces for 2015. I moved to a new room so I have a blank canvas to work with! I'm off to read more posts and make notes for inspiration. Go check them out here!

Catching Up and Week 3 TpT Seller Challenge

EEEK! I already did what I told myself I wouldn't do...forget to blog! So here I am two weeks later catching up.

Lazy Summer days include going to the gym for an hour in the mornings, binge watching new and old shows on Netflix, and checking out what others are up to through Instagram.

The data nerd in me was excited to see this pyramid today. I love these workouts. It's like I have my own personal trainer but with a group of people of all kinds of fitness levels. I definitely need someone to tell me what to do when it comes to working out.

And this is my new favorite show. I loved it so much after the first two episodes that I sat and watched the ENTIRE season one the rest of the night. I felt like I was BFFs with Jane and Lily!

I've also been busy working on my masterpiece for the TpT Seller Challenge.

I had started my "masterpiece" last summer when I needed a refresher for my monster classroom theme. I never went back to it as the year came and went. Thanks to this challenge, I really felt the push to finish.

The final product ended up being over 200 pages! I was tempted to keep going and make blackline masters but that might have to wait a little longer.

Some favorite printables of mine in this product are the binder cover pages and the school supply labels. They really pop with the super cute clip art and graphics I bought recently.

I also love my updated math wall kit.

That's what my wall looked like at the beginning of the year. ICK! Now I can't wait to add some color and cute monsters to match the rest of my classroom decor.

You can find my 'MONSTAR' Monster Decor Kit in my TpT Store, it's on sale right now too!

I can't wait to print out all of the pieces and laminate them. I've had this monster theme for 3 years now, let's hope I don't decide to pull a 180 and change the theme in August, ha!

Do you have any favorite classroom decor themes?