Pinterest, oh my!!

How many of you are in love with Pinterest like I am? Oh my!!! I had a summer FULL of pinning; now I need a make-and-take day  week, well in all actuality,probably a couple of weeks to make everything I pinned.

I love coming up with new ideas for my classroom, but honestly, sometimes I just lose my creative juices when I'm thinking so much about technology and which app might help to hit home a particular concept or showcase my students' learning. So seeing everyone else's ideas is always refreshing.

Here are just a few things that I've made that I'm excited to use in my classroom this year.

Love this idea! When students need to use the bathroom, they will place this at their table spot so I know who is gone. When they come back they will take a squirt of hand sanitizer before putting the "pass" back on the counter. I'm hoping this will help to ensure clean hands and less germs in our room and on our iPads too. 







Here's another one... I've been using Daily 5 for a number of years and have dabbled with CAFE as well. I love them both and love how students have more independence as well as a better sense of what their goals are. I've always wanted to do something similar for writing. Well... thanks to Pinterest, wish #535 has come true.

Next, I  made "theme journals" for the kids to use at the writing center during Work on Writing time. I six all together: sports, ouch, dinosaurs, vacations, pets, and family. I really think this will be a hit with the kids. I don't plan to pull them out right away, but rather use them as a motivational tool when things start to get a bit mundane.  One of my colleagues used this idea last year  and had great success with them. Most of the clip art I used is from the DJ Inkers, Critter Craze collection if you're interested.

http://pinterest.com/pin/275704808408977358/ 

I also found this fantastic resource that I plan to use with my kiddos when we begin to edit our writing. Click the link under the image if you'd like to check it out for yourself.

Ok, off to work on my next Pinterest-inspired project... seeing as I only have a few days left before school starts I better get going on my "make and take" days since they days are dwindling fast.