Management Mondays

This is me today and probably the rest of the week!

Do Mondays ever seem to be the longest days ever?? Well, today is just dragging on FOREVER and guess what? Our school system has not yet taken spring break! AHHH!! On another note, I am excited to share with you some things that I have been doing around my classroom to make it a little "less hectic" around here during the school year. I did not come up with any of these ideas, and cannot remember where I found them, but they work for me and my kids!! 

Our fish nets (remember I have the ocean theme) are used for both unfinished work and daily homework. This way we do not forget anything inside our desks. The "tiddy turtle" checks these everyday before we go home to ensure that all homework is taken home. 

These are SUPER EASY to make--first I bought the top file jackets from walmart, then laminated and I placed a large strip of magnetic tape of the back. WALLAH!  

Another tool that we use almost everyday is our "fish hooks". I'm pretty sure I found this tip in the book called The Organized Teacher.

These are also simple to make. I went to walmart, purchased the magnetic buttons in the craft section and there ya have it! :) Simple I know. We use these for work  that either needs to be added to something later or work that we have glued and it needs to dry before taking it home. 

These past few weeks have been absolutely horrendous because of how late our spring break is this year. Even my GOOD kids are getting in trouble. Ugh!! So, I went searching last week on blog land and found the greatest solution to my problem! 

I found this idea at What the Teacher Wants and I could not have found it at a better time. What you do is take the number of kids you have in your class and double it. (Example-I have 15 therefore I bought 30 eggs). In one basket I put 15 eggs with the students names inside. In the other basket I put 15 eggs with "prizes" inside. They are silly things like sit with a friend for 15 minutes, free pencil sharpener time, extra 5 minutes of recess, free ice cream (you get the point). You can even go print the prizes for free at her blog! 

This has been super effective. When my students see me walking toward the basket--they freeze and make sure they are doing what they are supposed to in hopes of picking the "prize egg!"