An easy way to cover painting easels is to use the new Glad Press and Seal
Wrap. Just press the wrap down onto the easel board making sure to press the
edges firmly where they wrap to the back of the board. You do not need any tape
or other adhesive materials since the wrap itself adheres to the board. It
easily wipes clean when using kids' paint and is just as easy to remove
completely and replace when the ratio of paint to wrap gets too high!
Peggy Smith ~ West Columbia, SC
Have a mess at the sink? Put a bar of antibacterial soap
in the foot of a nylon stocking and tie to the faucet. Kids can wash hands
without the mess.
Donna Pomponi and Madeline DiCanni ~ Philadelphia, PA
Use hoola hoops to create
centers for manipulative objects. It contains the student(s) and the small
pieces that they are working with!!
Lynn Cable ~ Lebanon, TN
Do you have little ones who need something to help them sit still on the carpet, or do you need something to mark seats on the carpet besides that awful masking tape? Try Velcro strips. "The hook side" sticks to the carpet. You can write a name on them and they can be vacuumed over.
When teaching handwriting I
use brown, green and blue lines on the board. The brown (the dirt line) is
on the bottom, the green (the grass line) is in the middle and the blue (the sky line) is on the top. I then explain the procedure of the
letter I am teaching by referring to the name of the lines. I keep the
children's attention and they better understand the process.
Judy Kvaale ~West Fargo, North Dakota
Have children who cry for their parents
everyday at the beginning of the school year? Ask them to bring in a photo of Mommy
and Daddy or their family and let them leave it on their desks. This one usually
works.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Place the student's picture on
a clip and hang from the ceiling. Display artwork or papers. You can
always tell whose work is being displayed by the picture.
Tee Cher ~Valrico, FL
A good way to help kids know how you
want them to place their paper in front of them or to fold their paper is to say
"hamburger" or "hotdog". Hotdog is tall and skinny and hamburger
is the opposite.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Don't you hate it when the
kids are stringing beads or sewing and the yarn gets unraveled? Dip the
ends of the yarn in all-purpose glue, melted wax, or even tape them to eliminate
this problem.
Tee Cher ~Valrico, FL
If you are ever in an evaluation and you are
losing control or things aren't going as planned, pull out a puppet.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
To save paper and be organized for those monthly art projects, try the following. Use old
file folders to make patterns for students instead of printing the pattern each year.
Store pattern pieces, directions, and a sample in a ziploc bag in your monthly folder in
the file cabinet.
Jeanette Phillips ~
Martin County, FL
Whenever you create a unit or bulletin
board, take pictures of it and store necessary parts in a file folder. When you are
ready to do it again, pull out the folder and everything will be right there, especially
exactly what it looked like.
Sally Clemmer ~
Miami, FL
When making your name tags, use old
plastic placemats and cut them into your shape of the name tags. Use a permanent marker
and these are hard to destroy!
Tanya Wahl ~
Wiley Elementary
Keep baby wipes handy for quick handwashing without a mess.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Make sure to send notes to parents when
students are doing what they should. Don't get caught up in writing only negative
notes to the same parents.
Aaron Nicolosi ~Jacksonville, FL
A helpful hint when asking for items,
money,etc... from parents is to ask towards the first of the month.
Ebony Johnson ~Miami, FL
Use nail polish remover to take
permanent marker off of where you have students names on laminated objects.
Bonnie Goldberg ~
Brevard County, FL
This tip is for a field trip where you
have a cooler for drinks. If you have little ones who do not know what drink is
theirs, have the parents write the name of the drink on their lunch bag. This is a
lifesaver when you are passing out lunches to starving kids!
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
You know how when the word
"bathroom" is mentioned, everyone all of a sudden has to go? This
tip solves that problem. When the kids need to be excused, they cross their fingers in the
air. All the teacher needs to do is nod their head and the child gets up without
disrupting the story or lesson. Another idea is to use the ASL sign for
restroom. It is the letter "T" (make a fist and stick the thumb up between the
first two fingers) and shake it back and forth.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Empty popcorn containers from the
movies make great scrap buckets. I also use paper paint buckets from Home
Depot or similar. I put one in the center of each table. The
kids place their scraps in there whenever they are cutting things out. It sure keeps
them in their seats for a few minutes longer.
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Contact Paper cut out into shapes on
the Ellison Press make great nametags for field trips. They don't lose their stick
and fall off!
Chris Minch ~ Port St. Lucie, FL
Each table has a table captain that changes weekly. We start at the same
place on each table and go counter clockwise each week. Table captains are the
ones who get up for supplies, pass out materials to their tables, make sure
everyone at their table is following directions and whatever else you assign
them. The main purpose is to have transitions from one subject or activity to
another go quickly, quietly and orderly. It also keeps the table captains on
their toes because they have to always know what the directions are so they can
do their job. Since everyone gets multiple chances to be table captain it is
also a good observation tool for the teacher for individual student's ability to
follow directions, etc. I don't even know who the table captains are from week
to week. The kids keep up with it and I always ask table captains to raise their
hands when I am handing out something.
Karen Cook ~ West Palm Beach, FL
I have a magnetic bathroom sign--red on one side, that says "Closed"; green
on the other side, that says "Open"--high enough to be seen from anywhere in the
room, but low enough for the shortest student to manipulate. This way no one is
waiting at the bathroom door or getting up to go see if someone is in there.
Each child turns the sign over to the appropriate side as he/she enters or exits
the bathroom. I am not interrupted or distracted by students asking or holding
up hands, etc. I give specific directions from day one about when bathroom time
is allowed except for an emergency--for instance, not while I am giving
directions or explaining a new assignment, if it will disrupt a group activity
or if there is a guest speaker, etc.
Karen Cook ~ West Palm Beach, FL
To put
safety first when taking children on field trip, make tags out of different
shapes (or colors, animals, vegetables, etc. using the Ellison machine, if
available) with the school or teacher's name, school phone number (for
preschoolers) instead of each child's name. The world is a different place
today and we don't want to give dangerous people any information that they do
not need to know.
W.F. C.~ Norfolk, VA
Use germ-x to clean hands faster.
At the beginning of the
year I take a digital picture of all my students. Then I use these
pictures for many things including desk tags to help the students learn
their names and each other's names, they also help substitutes and visiting
guests know where each child sits and puts a face with each name. I
also include the child's picture with their name on the word wall.
This also helps my kindergarteners learn each other's names as well as how
to spell their own name. I use their pictures on their hooks, job
cards, and participation sticks ( popsicle sticks I use to make sure every
child has a chance to be called on). In addition, we have these
pictures for fieldtrip tags, lunch tags, and as a visual record of what the
student looked like at the beginning of the year. The students love
seeing themselves displayed all over the room and it encourages them to
learn each other's names.
Lorri Lamm -