Category Archives: Organization

DIY: Dry Erasers

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“Miss O., can I hand out the socks?!”

This may not be a normal request in your classroom, but it is in mine!

When I posted the other day about using page protectors to create instant dry erase boards, it reminded me of another idea! I got this idea from my cooperating teacher when I was student teaching. I was perplexed when all the students brought a sock with their school supplies, then Mrs. Huisman explained that the socks were used as dry erasers. Brilliant! Of course, I forgot about this until later…

When I started using page protector dry erase boards on a regular basis, I would hand out tissues to everyone to erase their boards. But then cold and flu season hit, and we did not have tissues to spare! Then I remembered those socks. I made a run walmart and picked up a class set of socks (only one per student, not a pair!). Then I put one skinny marker and one thick marker in each sock.

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Ok, clearly these socks have been used! :) The great thing about storing your dry erase markers this way, is that you get your markers and erasers handed out in one step…and the kids can’t see what color marker they are getting, no arguing… perfect. I store my markers in a container like this:

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Remember that container from my garage saling this summer?! I have put it to good use.

So there you go, DIY dry erase boards and dry erasers! Unfortunately, I do not have an idea DIY ideas for making dry erase board markers…we have these on our school supply list at the beginning of the year.

Student Artwork

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If your students are anything like mine, they LOVE giving you precious, original works of art. If your classroom is anything like mine, there is not enough wall space to display all this priceless artwork. My solution? I use my ELMO, or you could use a scanner or digital camera, and take a picture of the artwork. I save it in a folder aptly named, “Student Artwork”, then set my screen saver to scroll through the artwork when I’m idle. This usually only happens after lunch, and the kids love looking at their artwork up on the big screen!

Here is one of my favorites from this year so far:

Art 12

Please note that “Miss O” is the tank, not the person being shot.

Always prepared! My Dropbox love.

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Today I have a tool I just must share with you. If you are a teacher, student or person who ever works on more than one computer, ie: work computer and home computer, then Dropbox might be your new best friend. I have tried many means of syncing my files across my home computer, school desk top and school laptop. I tried using a “Briefcase” on my flashdrive, which works OK, as long as you remember to sync it everyday and remember to put it back in your purse, backpack, pocket, keychain, etc… that’s a lot of remembering for this absent minded teacher! The last few years I used “Windows Live Sync” but my computer on the other end had to be online for me to access the files, and it was recently blocked at school. Eh. Enter….DROPBOX.

This handy little tool is simple to use and has not failed me yet. All you do is go to Dropbox.com and set up a FREE account. You get 2 gigs free, FREE! I have only used 18% of my 2 gigs, so it’s plenty for storing the files I need to access at home and school. Anyway, when you download dropbox you get a little folder in your “My Documents” or wherever you want to put it. All you do is start saving to that folder and it will automatically update the files online. You can also download the Dropbox folder on any computer and it will automatically update the files on that computer. I have created a file for my Master’s class and my “School Files 2010-11″ folder where I’m saving all my school documents. So while I’ve been sitting here at Starbucks this morning, I’ve accessed files for my Master’s project and lesson plans. It makes me instantly prepared. Love it.

If you are working on a random computer that doesn’t have Dropbox downloaded, you can always access your files online at dropbox.com. Working in the computer lab or library? No problem.

Want to know more about Dropbox? check out this quick video explaining everything much better than I can!  I love that they describe Dropbox as the “Magic Pocket”…so true.

300

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Woot-woot! Today my blog had its 300th unique hit…I know that’s not much compared to the thousands that other bloggers have, but for me it says, “Someone is reading this.” So, thanks for reading. This blog has been a great way for me to process this summer as I got ready to go back to the classroom, I hope I’m able to continue to post consistently once school starts.

I know I’ve been posting a lot of detail-oriented pictures lately, but that’s the stage of classroom planning I’m at right now…so here are some more:

Cushion I made for the egg chair, how cute did that turn out!?

My last crop of pillows–these ones are smaller. I have a grand total of 9 pillows, now all I need is some kiddos to snuggle with them!

All the pillows in their home.

Here is another idea for your classroom maintenance:

I got these car wash mitts form the dollar store –my  kids use them to clean the whiteboards and they think they are the greatest things ever!

Quick Update!

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Here is a quick update of the things I did in my room on Friday, it was a pretty unproductive day because there were too many people back to talk to and catch up with :) I guess it’s a good problem that I love my coworkers so much!

Remember when I got nail aprons FREE from Home Depot? Here is what the nail apron on the chair looks like.

Easy access for books, AND I can always see that the kids have books to read…no more excuses!

Here are the completed pillows (almost). I bought really cheap pillows at Wal-Mart and just sewed pillow cases from fabric I got at JoAnns. I wanted to be able to wash them occasionally since kids make things dirty! I am going to add some velcro to the top flap so that they stay closed. (I finished the pillow for the “egg” chair yesterday, I’ll take a pic of it, so cute!)

Finally, here the plants I bought at Home Depot last week. I think plants make any space so homey! Plus, my kids are in charge of watering them so it gives me another classroom job. (These plants sit in the BIGGEST, brightest window that literally bathes my classroom in natural light, love it.)

Teacher Workshops start tomorrow. Where did summer go! I will be teaching website and iTouch training tomorrow, and SMARTBoard training at the high school on Tuesday…trying not to be too nervous!

Boardless Bulletin Board

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All my boxes are unpacked and almost all my “stuff” has found a new home, and now it’s time to decorate and put things up.  Remember a while back I shared about my classroom economy? Well Monday, when I was at school, I put together my Scholar Dollar bulletin board and thought you might be interested.

This zoomed picture hopefully orients you in my classroom...see those nasty spots on the wall where they took down a bulletin board to put up the SMARTBoard?

This zoomed picture orients you in my classroom. See those nasty spots on the wall where they took down a bulletin board to put up the SMARTBoard? That’s where this bulletin board is going, right next to the door for easy access. Now, I actually don’t have a bulletin board for this, so I just staple everything straight into the wall with a heavy duty stapler.

I put up some fadeless paper and a cute butterfly border to cover up that ugly wall, then stapled up this green pocket chart.

We have a school-wide discipline plan called “Color Changes”. I know many teachers use a version of this system. Basically, the kids all start out on Green, then for any behavior issues they get “Color Changes”. Yellow is the first warning, then orange, red, and blue is an office referral. I made colored cards that fit in the pocket chart and laminated them.

Each pocket gets a stack of cards.

Now come the checkbooks! Each kiddo will get their own, and we will put their name on the pocket and on the top of the checkbook.

This serves as my attendance chart and behavior management system. The kids pick up their checkbook right when they walk in the door, when it’s time for attendance I glance at the chart, if there is a checkbook still there that kid is probably absent. Throughout the day if there are any behavioral issues I can quickly flip their color cards. And at the end of the day, the kids put their checkbooks back in the chart. If there is a color change they have to bring their checkbook up to me and we write it in their checkbook (they are fined a dollar for each color change) and then they change their color back to green and put their checkbook away. I love this system. Simple. Straightforward. Effective.

Finishing touches

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Today was day #2 of “Operation Organize Oelschlager Classroom”. On Tuesday I just made the mess messier, but today I actually made progress in de-messing the mess! Did ya get that?! I am nowhere near finished, but at least it’s starting to look like a classroom.

I’m still debating about how to set up my desks for the beginning of school, right now I’m experimenting with cluster groups. The jury is still out.

So anyway, I decided small victories is going to be the name of the game, and I worked on one small area at a time: unpack box, evaluate keep or throw, find place for item. It worked pretty well and at the end of the day I was able to put the finishing touches on my library:

This was one of my Ikea purchases last week, it is such a cute rug, I just couldn’t pass it up!

Library before finishing touches.

Library after finishing touches.

Don’t the Shoe Chair and rug look fantastic together?  I wish I had enough money in my classroom setup budget to get TWO of these rugs–it is so fun– but on will have to do for now.

Picasa Love

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As I’ve mentioned before, I love organizing. Books, stuff, files, closets–you name it, I’ll organize it! And this need to organize is not limited to physical stuff, no, I love organizing digitally. Being a pretty die hard MacGirl, I’ve utilized iPhoto for my personal pictures, and I’ve been generally satisfied. But as the yearbook coordinator this year, and as I’ve generally accumulated lots of photos at school, I realized I wanted something I could use on my school PC and easily sync onto the Internet. Enter: Picassa. I’ve had a Picasa account for a long time, but I only recently discovered its amazing powers! Oh, Picasa, how I love thee, let me count the ways!

  1. FREE!! Need I say more? You can download the Picasa3 for Mac or PC to have as an application on your computer for absolutely free. It really is just as good as iPhoto, if not a leeetle bit more user-friendly! (Don’t tell my sweet little MacBook I said so!)
  2. VERSATILE. There are so many things this handy little tool can do! First of all it will scan your computer for all your photos, it will even import all your iPhoto events! You can add tags, captions, people, and places. You can create albums, star pictures, and easily organize to your heart’s content!
  3. WEB-SYNCABLE. Yes, I made up a new word, but it’s so wonderful! You can sync your pictures to your PicasaWeb account with the click of a button. And PicasaWeb  is actually a part of the beloved Google App family! (If you have a Google account you already have a Picasa account and didn’t even know it!)
    • There is also a Facebook Add on you can download so you can upload an album automatically to Facebook–sweet multitasking!
  4. SHARABLE. You can embed, link, and share individual photos or whole albums. In addition, and this is very important for school, you can set your security settings to keep photos completely private.
    • I’m using Picasa to upload and embed all my pictures on this blog, it works really well,  is super simple, and saves my limited edublogs storage space! FYI: Picasa gives you 1GB of photo storage free, and then you can buy 20GB for $5.00/year.
    • Here is an example of an embedded album from my trip to Colorado…and there are a few pictures of my house :)

  5. FACES. I was mesmerized when I first tried out the Faces feature on iPhoto, it scans your pictures and picks out the faces and then you label who is who and it will automatically find the faces of the people you identify. Awesome and futuristic! However, I was disappointed by how “off” it tended to be and how tedious it was to go through all the suggested people. Enter: Picasa. It has the same amazing Face recognizing capabilities in a much simpler and (I think) more accurate format. When it gives you the suggestions it also gives you the ability to quickly and easily scan the pictures and “Confirm All” or click a check mark or an X…easy-peasy.

The only thing that is that it is a little creepy to see the hundreds of thumbnails of only your face!

So, there is my rave review of Picasa, my new favorite organizing tool! I’m excited to use it this year with my kids, I think it’s definitely user-friendly enough for them to easily upload and embed pictures. Anyone have any photo software reviews? I have tried using Flickr, Photobucket, and SnapFish, but so far I’m sold on Picasa.

The wave of enthusiasm…is dead.

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Remember that wave of enthusiasm I told you about last week when I excitedly made my way to school on a Saturday? Yeah, that’s dead. It ran out yesterday, on the last day of summer school. I promised my wonderful custodian, Jose, that I would have all my stuff put away by Friday (at the latest) so he could clean the carpets in my room.  (I saw the panicked look in his eye when he looked at my disaster)

What, you can’t clean around my mountains of boxes and random piles? After I  finished getting everything wrapped up at Summer School, I headed to my lair classroom, and I just stood there staring at the piles, as the  waves of enthusiasm slowly ebbed away, and disappeared into the ocean of Summer. So, what’s a girl to do? She starts stuffing things into cabinets, bookshelves, and drawers as quickly as possible, of course! (Is this the way anyone else “cleaned” their bedroom when they were a kid?) Caution: Do not open the big storage closet, or you may be hit by falling math manipulatives! I know I will regret this come August, but I simply could not be at school for a minute longer! After everything had been “put away”,  I drove my sleepy little self home, and took a THREE hour nap! It was like my body had been waiting for summer, and knew the exact moment it arrived.

I’m so glad that I went in last weekend, and I did finish the library:

Don’t you worry, even though I won’t have any trouble staying away from school until August , I still have lots of nerdyness to share with you until then!

Nerdiest Purchase I’ve Ever Made

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A few months ago when I decided that I wanted to organize and catelog my classroom library I decided I was going to need a little help. I imagined the 1000+ books that were stored in my garage and mentally calculated how long it would take me to type them all into Excel. And of course I would want to include the AR Level and Points, and while I was at it I wanted to label all the books into categories…I would probably be done by 2020, if I was lucky. So I did a little Googling and THAT is how I discovered the Intelliscanner, dun-dun, dun. Confession: One of my secret desires has always been to be a librarian. All my childhood books have numbers written in the covers, and my sister was forced to play library on more than one occasion. The Intelliscanner is basically a library scanner for the common man teacher.

This handy little scanner connects to your computer, scans the barcode on your books, and puts them into a fantastic software that looks a lot like iTunes. It loads all the information about your book, including the title, author, type of book, date, price, and even adds a cover picture (if available). It’s a nerdy teacher’s dream device.

Click the picture to see this up close

It would take me YEARS to enter all the information that this program looks up online for me. When you double click the book it gives you additional information, including a summary:

You can customize your own categories , and I created columns for the Reading Level and AR points.  You can order your books according to any of the categories by clicking on the column heading, so I can arrange them by reading level, author’s name, or type of book with just a click of a button.

I love this feature of the Intelliscanner Software, I can click the “Statistics” button and it breaks down my library for me. I have 1,325 books in my library with 845 unique titles. (I told you I have a book problem!) I also scanned in the movies I use in my classroom and the audio books I have in my listening center. It even tells me how much I spent on books if I paid sticker price,  I certainly hope I didn’t spend $6,320.89 on books, good thing I shop at Half Price books :)

Oh this next part just warms my nerdy, little heart:

I can lend out my books, just like in a real library. My kids will type in their name, and I’ll be able to keep track of who is reading what. I know, I know, what can’t this program do?

One more thing it can do, is that you can  share your library online with the handy little “Share” button. It publishes your library to your own website (for free!), check out mine here http://www.intelliscanner.net/aoelschlager/books/.  I love all the options and features that the Intelliscanner and software offers. Not only does it fulfill a childhood dream, but it is a great organizational tool and will help me manage my classroom full of eager readers.

Upcoming Post: An Intelliscanner alternative…LibraryThing