Mystery Walker Game

Well, a few of my Firsties are still (after almost 3 weeks) having some difficulty walking in the hall without swinging arms, jumping around on the tiles, or talking! I remembered hearing about a game called Mystery Walker. I was telling my student teacher about it and we decided it might be a good idea to use to help with our hallway behavior! The game is simple. Tell the students that you are going to secretly pick a "mystery walker" prior to leaving the classroom to walk down the hall. As you go down the hall pretend that you are watching everyone by actually focus on the student who is your "mystery walker." When you get back to the classroom either reward your "mystery walker" or tell the class that your mystery walker did not follow the rules and that person will not get the reward. DO NOT say who the mystery walker was if they did not have success! I think this is going to work great!
I read a post at Teaching Third Grade blog about a poem that goes along with this idea so I have typed it up and added some fun graphics. It is free at my TPT store.Mystery Walker Poster

I have been MIA!

So sorry for the long lapse in posting! The beginning of the school year knocks me out! So tired! We started our 3rd week today and I think things are getting better!! I have a great group of kids this year! Happy Teacher!!

If you are still setting up your routines and need a good book, try Interrupting Chicken.
Find some great ideas for this book at Mrs. Wheeler's First Grade Tidbits
Time to go relax! Hope your school year has started off great!

Back to School Ideas

I am linking up with Mrs. Wheeler to highlight some great back to school products! Go check it out!

Library Freebie

I decided I needed a cute little Pirate themed sign in my Library corner so I made one! I hope someone else can use it also! Pirate Library Sign Freebie

Inspiration and Faith

Well, this post doesn't really relate to teaching except for the fact that at this time of year we all need a little inspiration! We also need to be reminded (as we scramble around to get ready for a new school year) of what is truly important in our lives!

If you want a good read, please check out the book, Realer Than Real by Ryan Wilkins. It is the story of one family's true life events and how their faith helped them through some very difficult times in their lives. This book will make you laugh and then the next page will have you crying. What a good writer this author is!

We are friends with this family and have followed their struggles in recent years. You can find this book here: Realer Than Real

Crayons & Curls: Glue... Dot, Dot, Not a Lot!

Crayons & Curls: Glue... Dot, Dot, Not a Lot!

You have to check out this post about glue! It is always a problem for a few students and this book is just perfect!

How Do You Do Dice??

I have been seeing a classroom dice storage project all over Pinterest and blogs since last summer and I finally decided to work on completing it. I think this will really be helpful for students to grab their dice for math stations and go! It will also help with the problem of certain students (you know you always have a few) that refuse to roll the dice correctly so it doesn't shoot all the way across the room!
I had purchased the magnetic boards at the Target dollar spot earlier in the summer and decided one of them would work perfectly! I found the magnetic dice containers (or whatever they are really made for!) at Michaels the other day and loved the colors they come in. I purchased the gold, white and black to coordinate with my board but they also come in red, green, and silver! 
I just picked up some letters while at Michaels and added that to the top and the letters included some polka dots so I threw those onto the bottom of the board just for fun!
I hot glued my ribbon hangar on the back so it doesn't come loose when hanging.

This was so simple to create and I love how it looks! More importantly, I think it is going to be a great asset to the management in my classroom! What do you think??