Easy Motivation!

"Oh, Back to School, Back to School, To prove to Dad I'm not a fool..."
Love me some Billy Madison...silly and fun!  Haven't seen it in a while.  I'll have to be sure to see that one again soon!   Remember Miss Lippy?  Hilarious!

So we went back from Spring Break this week and I have had the opportunity to start taking some photos around the room.  I would have thought that I would have had some photos to share...but I've been really terrible about remembering to take photos this year!

This post is about a simple idea that has working wonders for me in my classroom.  I teach 1st grade this year, but taught Kindergarten for the past 3.  This idea worked wonderfully for me at both levels.   In my classroom, I have "Team Captains."  The captains are really a version of "Ask 3 then me".  The students are always to ask their team captain if they have a "issue" during Daily 5 or Math Centers.  Also, the captains are the ONLY students that are allowed to come to me while I'm working with small groups.  (In the beginning, they would come to me occasionally, but now they've kind of realized that the only issues that really require interrupting are medical related...and rare.)
At the beginning of the school year, I choose the captains.  I explain to the students the types of behaviors and quality of work that I am looking for in my team captains.  I reward the students that are performing to these standards with their selection as team captain.  As the year goes on, the students begin to select each other as captain.  They understand the expectations and are sure to select their peers that are appropriate for the "position".  As a special incentive for the selected students, the Captains get to wear these snazzy visors.  They love wearing them because if another teacher or the principal comes in for a visit, they always get some extra positive attention.  Sometimes they even "forget" to take them off when we leave the classroom.  :)  As you can see in the picture, I have a sports theme in my classroom this year and I use these picture frames to post the captains names for the week.  I just use a dry erase marker.  Easy and quick!

Well, here's hoping that I survive the rest of this week...you'd think I'd be used to this by now but after a week of heavy T.V. catch up, my school stamina isn't where it was!

The time has come...to teach Time! Freebie!

So my firsties have been working on learning to tell time to the hour and half hour.  I really was not looking forward to teaching this topic because I did NOT think it was going to go well.  Thankfully, I was wrong!  They were really catching on...even noticing that a half hour is called a half hour because the minute hand goes halfway around the clock!  Seriously, that was THEIR observation!  (One little smarty even pointed out that 30 is half of 60)
So anyways, I was thrilled and the way that I try to reward my students for their excitement and willingness to learn is to create new and engaging centers for them.  I always try to include some kind of authentic material for each of my centers, so I looked around my classroom and into my "Time" drawer and found some extras of the little plastic clocks that come with the math manipulative kits.  I knew how much they loved using those little clocks and new I had to incorporate them into a center.  I came up with this little center called "Beat the Timer".  In it, the students will choose 5 digital time cards and place them face down next to 5 of the little plastic clocks.  They will start a sand timer and attempt to set their clocks to the time on the card before the time runs out.  I created this little recording sheet to go with it.  My kiddos are loving it!  Hope yours will too!

Beat The Timer

Welcome to Type A Teacher!

Hello, and welcome to my new blog!  I've gotten really into following some teacher blogs recently and in doing so I thought..."Hey, I have some things to share," so I thought I'd give it a whirl!     The blog title comes from my tendency to be a tad bit anal organized.  I'm excited to share some of my tricks of the trade with all of you.   I'm in my 9th year of teaching and over time have taught 5th, 4th, 2nd, kindergarten, and now 1st grade.  It's been exciting and fun so far!   I hope you enjoy reading about some of my successes (and disasters) that I've had over the course of my career. 

Thanks for reading!