I've got a new collection of name plates that would be perfect for your monster themed classroom.   In this digital download their are 6 different name plates for you to choose from.  

Each name plate has the alphabet, a number line, the months and days of the week.

You can get these for free for the next two days.  So on Thursday,  July 11 2013,  I will start charging for them.  You can get them in my shop or by going to my student name plates page.  

In other news I now have a teachers notebook store open.  You can go to the store by clicking on the Teachers notebook widget to the right.   - - - - >

I don't have all of my products loaded onto the store yet but most of them are.  You can also shop at my Teachers pay teachers shop,  right here on this website or on my Facebook store.  

Happy, Forth of July everyone.  I've been working very hard on a new project, and coincidentally I was able to finish it just yesterday.  So seems fitting that I release my President student name plates on the 4th of July.

Each of these name plates has a motivational quote from a President of the US.  They will be great for motivating your students not only to learn about the presidents but to build character and work hard in school.  

All 43 of the presidents are included.  There are only 43 because one president, Grover  Cleveland was the 22 and the 24 president of the United States.  

I've also created a new page on this website to showcase all of the name plates that I will be creating.  You can learn more about the President name plates and see more examples of them on that page.  Student name plates.

I'm cruising right along in my study of the Book Whisperer by Donalyn Miller.   This chapter was all about finding time to read in the classroom and creating a great reading environment.  

Donalyn's focus is on 6th grade and middle school.  Those of us who work with the younger ones know just how difficult it is to have them stay focused for such long periods of time.  If your included in that group I recommend that you take up time to build up their reading endurance.  A great way to do this is to start off, at the beginning of the school year, with just a few minutes a day and then gradually increase the time spend reading as the year goes along.  

I loved the authors suggestions about ways to find time for reading in the classroom,  even when your school district doesn't have time allocated for silent reading.  One of the times she mentioned that students could steal some time to read is during picture day.  Although that's just one day out of the school year, and I don't see how an activity on only one day will make that much difference in the reading outcomes of your students, I can testify that its great for classroom management on those days. 

I remember that back when I was a student teacher and it was about time for my kids to go and wait for their pictures, that I dreaded trying to find a way to keep them quiet in the halls for however long they would have had to wait.  As it turns out they had to wait about 20 mins because they had fallen behind from previous classes.  Luckily my classroom wasn't so far away from where they were taking the pictures so I had a chance to take my class back and start a read aloud.  When is was time to go out in the hall and wait again.  I had the students sit next to the wall and walked up and down the hall showing my students the rest of the pictures of the story. (We hadn't finished the book yet.)  I also asked them to try and figure out how the story was going to end only by looking at the pictures of the story.  

This technique worked perfectly and my class was so good in the hall that we even got compliments that they where the best behaved class that had gone through yet.  

Well, I guess that's all I had to say about the chapter.  I highly recommend that you read the book yourselves.  

With summer about half over I'm already seeing so many advertisements for back to school.  I can't believe that summer is going by so quickly, can you?  So for all of you preparing to go back to the classroom soon  I've decided to have a back to school count down.  Every Thursday (hopefully)  I will be having one of many items in my store be released for free and another for 50% percent off.  

Today I'm going to be focusing on classroom management resources.  You can get one of my bathroom and hall passes set for free and just for today my classroom job labels is %50 percent off.

I've decided to have another Rafflecopter giveaway.  This time you can win one of my most popular products.  50 animal fact bookmarks.  These bookmarks are great incentives to get students motivated in the classroom.  Just answer the question, "How do you motivate your students to read? by leaving a comment."  You can also like my Facebook page, the blog post, or follow me on Pinterest.  The contest will go until Wednesday.  Good-luck everyone!

This think sheet for behavior management helps students to STOP and consider their actions.  They need to describe what their behavior was, come up with a plan to change their behavior, list the consequence of their behavior and finally figure out why the behavior happened in the first place. 

This is one of my growing collection of classroom management tools on this site.  And I've created a whole new page devoted to the use of think sheets or behavior contracts.

I only have 3 up on the page right now but stay tuned because there is sure to be more.

While reading the Giggles Galore blog I found this idea that I just had to share.  Its a tattling monster.  Instead of having your students come and interrupt you 20 times a day you can have them write what they need to say to the tattle monster.  So you get less interruptions and your students are writing.  Go read the post on theGiggles Galore blog, you'll find directions on how to make a tattle monster of your own as well as a cute poem to go along with the monster.