Planning, Planning, Planning

I have spent a lot of time on my computer this summer.  I am reading blogs, pinning on my Pinterest boards, and making notes.  This August will begin my second year as an 8th grade Language Arts teacher, and I am excited!

We are moving fully into implementation of the Idaho Core Standards this year.  I am a little nervous, but ready to accept the challenge.  I attended a technology summit last week and one thing I got out of that was a template to unit plans for the entire year!  (Maybe I am a little slow, but I had no idea where I was supposed to even begin planning for next year...I brought home the CCSS, my textbook, my ideas for an interactive notebook, but I had no idea where to start!!)  Anyway, once I found this, I was ready to get moving! (You can find the link I used here: Idaho Core Standards Integration Portal www.ed.isu.edu/depts.ccss)  Like I said, you may be miles ahead of me on this one, but I thought I would throw that out there just in case!

I am working on incorporating an Interactive Notebook for ELA this year.  I have used variations of one for a couple of years, but I am excited to put this into practice for the entire course.  I will show the steps I am using to set this up.  Here is my notebook cover.

As you can see, I am a Hello Kitty fan.  (One can grow older, but growing up is optional!)
TIP - Have kids decorate the cover,  and then use clear contact paper to keep the "stuff" from falling off and to provide a little more durability for the notebook. (I hate to say, this was not an original idea.)

Also, the kids will be attaching a 5x7 manila envelope onto the inside of the back cover.  This will be to catch pieces that have not been tacked down yet, or to hold things we don't want to glue down.  (As you can see, I decorated my envelope too.)

As I put this notebook together, I will post more photos.  I also plan to post photos of my classroom as I work on the continuous search for organization!!!

One last thing for today.  I have been drinking LOTS of Crystal Lite this summer to complete another project I saw on Pinterest.  I am lucky enough to have magnetic white boards, so this is great!

Again, with the Hello Kitty theme!  :)  I used Hello Kitty duct tape to cover the containers and then added some adhesive magnets.  (The magnets are ones that are intended to attach to a business card).  One magnet wasn't quite enough to hold the container, so I used a little more than half of a second one.  It worked great! I now have some handy storage containers for items that I am always losing at the front of my room.