Blurt Chart

A year ago I was doing my internship in a 3rd grade class. I loved that class, but they sure did enjoy shouting out during lessons. This became a problem when some students would shout out an answer about two seconds after I asked a question, leaving no time for those students who really needed the practice to come up with an answer of their own.

I had seen various Blurt Charts on Pinterest and decided to make one of my own. In case you have not heard of a Blurt Chart, the idea is that if a student yells out in class, he/she has to take down the yellow smiley face. If he/she does it again, the orange face comes down. If it happens again, the red face comes down, and the student faces some kind of consequence. Essentially, it gives each student three chances to shout out without getting in trouble immediately. My students shouted out so frequently that they got three blurts a day, but you could also do three blurts in the first half of the day and three blurts in the second half of the day or three blurts a week, etc.--whatever works for your class.

I have a Silhouette Cameo, so this was made using my printer and my Silhouette Cameo. The chart and the smiley faces were laminated separately. Once the smiley faces were laminated and cut out, I attached velcro dots onto the back of each smiley face. I had many more smiley faces than I needed since I printed as many as I could on one sheet of cardstock, but I figured it would be helpful to have extra smiley faces on hand in case any got ruined or lost. I placed a small bucket next to the Blurt Chart so that students had a place to drop their smiley face when they were asked to take a "blurt" down. This was also a good place to hold the extra smiley faces.

The Blurt Chart really helped the students stop themselves before yelling out, and eventually we didn't really need it anymore (which is the ultimate goal, in my opinion). The students seemed to like the Blurt Chart system--especially the velcro part. The students who frequently shouted out, disliked having to take a "blurt" down, but they also liked pulling off the velcro smiley face. The students who NEVER shouted out occasionally asked me if they could take one of their smiley faces down just for fun or just to see what it felt like. :)

Chevron Backgrounds

Since I love organization, I am already anticipating plenty of labels in my future. I figured I should start creating the background patterns for these labels now, while I have the time. Over the past week, I created five different chevron patterns in a multitude of color combinations, AND in both portrait and landscape orientations.  As much as I wish these could be freebies, they just took me too long to make (longer than I would like to admit), so each pack is for sale on my Teachers Pay Teachers store. Trust me, don't waste your own time trying to create these. Time really is money.

Please read the details for each product on my TpT, as some of the details vary from product to product.

DOUBLE CHEVRON

Double Chevron Backgrounds for labels, posters, and more!

MEDIUM CHEVRON

Medium Chevron Backgrounds for labels, posters, and more!

SMALL CHEVRON

Small Chevron Backgrounds for labels, posters, and more!

CHEVRON (LARGE SPACING)

Chevron (Large Spacing) Backgrounds for labels, posters, and more!

CHEVRON (SMALL SPACING)

Chevron (Small Spacing) Backgrounds for labels, posters, and more!

Book Leveling Stickers

As I have been collecting children's books to put in my future classroom, I have kept an Excel sheet with all kinds of information about each of the books...

Although it is easy enough for me to get on my computer and look at the information on each book, I thought it would be much simpler if I could just open up the back cover of the book and see the Interest Level, Grade Level Equivalent, and Lexile level. These stickers will also help me quickly determine which books should go on my bookshelf in the first place, depending on what grade level I am teaching. (When I start working at a school, I will also color code my books to match the media center.)

This led me to create my Book Leveling Stickers, which you can download here for free from my TpT store. All you need to do is buy the 2" x 4" Avery Shipping Labels (10 labels per sheet)--I bought these from Staples. 

Then, print the Book Leveling Stickers onto the Avery Labels. Each label will yield two stickers. Simply cut each label down the middle, and you will have two 2" x 2" Book Level Stickers. All that will be left to do is fill in the Interest Level (IL), Grade Level Equivalent (GLE), and Lexile level. 

To find this information, I first used the Scholastic Book Wizard App (the website works just as well). This is my favorite leveling app because it tells you the most about a book, but it doesn't have information on all books. I looked at the Level It Books App next to try to find any missing information. When that fails, I just go to the internet and cross my fingers that I will find what I am looking for. Otherwise, I just leave that field blank (shown in red in my Excel sheet above). 

My First Blog Post

Hello, everyone! This is obviously my first blog post, so just stick with me as I figure all of this out.

I'll start with a little bit about myself. I have a dog named Katie. I adopted her from the Tallahassee Animal Service Center in 2014, and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made. I love all animals, but I am not ashamed to admit that I am a "crazy" dog lady! I also really like cooking, baking, and crafting. I'm a perfectionist and a bit OCD (maybe more than a bit), so I love organization as well--you will probably be able to tell in later blog posts.

I am from Orlando, Florida, but I have been attending Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida for the past couple years. I received my Bachelor's Degree in Elementary Education, and I am currently working on my Master's Degree in Reading and Language Arts Education. I decided to knock out grad school instead of jumping right into teaching, so I likely won't be teaching until the 2016-2017 school year. However, I have been substitute teaching throughout grad school to pass the time.

I have wanted to be a teacher since I was a little kid, so I am constantly thinking about all things related to teaching. This will be the main focus of my blog. At times, I might also post things related to my dog, cooking, or crafting. Hopefully at least some of the information I share with you all will be helpful. Well, we'll see where this goes...