How to Request Supplies You Need at Back-to-School Night (Or Open House!)

Do you spend a lot of time agonizing over how to request supplies you need during your Back to School Night or Open House?  Many teachers use lists to show parents what they need for  the learning that goes on in their classroom.  Have you ever thought to use a themed Giving Tree for this all important request list?  Here are a few ideas for your classroom donations!

Easy to Use Design

These Giving Trees are totally easy to use!  Inside each of the Giving Trees you will find the letters to complete your display, the 8.5' x 11" poster that communicates the fact that you need to get those supplies for your classroom, and awesome frames for you to write your supplies on.  Everything you need!

Displaying Your Giving Tree

These are super easy to display too!  All you need is a white board, a bulletin board, your classroom door, or a display board!  I've seen them done in all of these ways!  Here's how you put this together.

1.  Print out all of the materials you will need.
2.  Cut out the letters and other items.  You may want to laminate them because you can sue them year after year!
3.  Write your wish list items one at a time on each frame.
4.  Display your Giving Tree in your room!
5. Get those supplies!  Whoot!!

Things to Remember!

Think across your school year and subjects for your supply needs.  Think about those craft projects or those STEM activities that escape you right now! Holiday parties and events are another thing to think about!  Dig into your year and go from there!  

It is always key to thank parents for the supplies that they send in.  Simply sending a thank you note is one of the easiest ways to thank them.  One great way to show everyone what supplies were donated and say thank you all at once is to make a picture collage of all the goodies and send it out to all the parents at once!  It's a super fun way to show your thanks!

Themes!

There are so many themes available that you should find something that meets your needs!  If you don't see one here, I could probably whip one up for your needs!  Simply leave a comment or email me at classroombestdays@gmail.com to share your idea!  Here are the themes available in my store now!

                                    

            

       

       

       

As you can see, using Giving Trees to request supplies you need at Back-to-School Night or Open House can be a simple and fun process.  I'd love to see you try one out!  Drop a comment if you have other ideas of how to ask for supplies!  We'd love your suggestions!

Want to discover more about how to make your classroom more student-led during the first week of school?  Check out this blog post!

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The Force Was With Us on May the 4th!!

This year's celebration DID NOT disappoint!  Each year I try and celebrate International Star Wars Day, which is on May the 4th!  I know this is my "thing", since I've been a Star Wars girl all my life!  I'm happy to say I am a member of the Class of 77'.  This has nothing to do with high school.  This, in Star Wars land, means that I was actually there, in 1977, to see the movie!  It was so fabulous, my mother let us all see it TWICE!  This was a BIG deal in the 70's, as no one could really afford to see a movie twice!  However, there is so much you can actually do that even if you are just familiar with Star Wars, you could run a successful day!  

Everyone needs some Star Wars in their life-a mug, a shirt, and some fun friends!! 

Let's Get Started!  

First, this was the PERFECT time for me to throw in a celebration for ending the FSA, Florida's version of State Testing!  My kids were totally wiped out after two days of testing.  So, today's celebration offered a wonderful chance to decompress and do something fun!  So, we started with a fun math that was easy yet worthy of a grade!  Check out what we did here!  This math idea would be one of the easiest ways that you can include this celebration into your classroom!  

Another great way to include this celebration into your classroom would be to add a touch of art!  This year, we added Symmetrical Aliens to our activities!  These are super simple to do and can be done with almost any theme!  Simply fold a piece of paper in half and have students draw 1/2 of their alien ON THE FOLD!  Once they finish, have them trace this design in crayon.  

Next, fold their alien into the inside of the paper and rub this line with a pencil on it's side.  They need to rub HARD!  Once you are done rubbing, open it up again. 

You will have a very light line.  Trace over it, and, you have a perfectly symmetrical alien!  Add any other details and color it in!  

These came out so great!  

Again, I kept with the tradition of letting the Wookie Win! This game is so fun and plays like a Jeopardy game.   It would be super easy to create because I can't share this one due to trademark issues.  The questions focus on review and you could even play this game without the fancy PowerPoint!  Just think of some fun questions from each category that you teach and go for it! 

It isn't a Star Wars celebration unless you have an tasty treat!  This year I went with TIE-fighters and Wookie Cookies!  Both of these were super simple!  Each child needs some Oreos or other cookies, a marshmallow, and some frosting!  They just put the frosting on the marshmallow and add the Oreos on the end!  Yum!  Our new treat was Wookie Cookies!  I put some chocolate frosting in a ziplock and cut a very small hole in the tip.  The kids used this to put the frosting on a chocolate chip cookie!  Then they added some edible eyes!  So cute and tasty too!  

It was a totally fun day and a truly great way to celebrate our success at the end of testing!  I hope you enjoyed International Star Wars Day and, if you have never celebrated, I hope it inspires you to try your own celebration!  Let me know what you do, too, in the comments!  And, May the 4th Be With You!  

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Student-Led Learning: Celebrate Good Times, Come On!!

You may be joining me for the first time or you may be joining me by following along in this series of posts about Fearless Learners, but I welcome you all to the CELEBRATION!  Yes, that's Step 6 in the books we've been enjoying this summer-Celebrate!  It's time!

Sutton and Westberry have done it again in this chapter!  There is no way you can't get through this text without knowing, deep down inside, that you can do this thing, this Student-Led Learning thing!  You feel grounded and passionate and READY even with so much to think about and/or prepare!  That is something to celebrate!!

But, be prepared!  You will meet resistance and get "those" looks!  It happened to me at a recent inservice.  I just mentioned the Student-Led Learning model at my last inservice to my table teachers and two things happened.  The younger teacher turned to her computer and started looking at the dieting website she was exploring and the older, almost retired teacher rolled her eyes.  This was NOT the first time in these four days this exact thing happened with the two of them!  The whole premise of the inservice SCREAMED Student-Led Learning and each time one, if not both, said, "My students could NEVER do that!" Why, you ask-they were from Title 1 schools!   Yet, research shared in Make Just One Change by Dan Rothstein and Luz Santana points to something else!  You see, I'm making a connection here that Student-Led Learning falls into the category of creating divergent thinkers!  It IS the ability to generate a wide range of ideas, options, hypotheses, and possibilities!  It is the combination of convergent thinking and metacognition!  It is all of this and more!  So, what do they say about the students that these teachers were speaking of?  Here's what they found, "Divergent thinking is almost always seen as a gift rather than an acquired and developed skill.  But this view is far from the truth:  divergent thinking is a distinct form of higher-order thinking that can be taught to all ages and all students....low academic performance showed an ability to learn divergent thinking and gained greater self-confidence in their overall abilities the more they practiced."  Let's celebrate THAT!  Stop thinking that your students CAN'T and let's celebrate that research says THEY CAN!  Give this model a try-it may very well surprise you and your students!  

And, with that, I am a little perplexed right now as to HOW I'm going to celebrate successes.  I have to say, this has always been my weak spot.  I always give high-fives, etc. as students learn, but it is important within the class for students to celebrate each other.  So, my first week I'm going to practice what I've read and let some control go over all the steps in this process.  I am going to recruit the help of my students to develop a plan for this.  It is leaving me with a pit feeling in my stomach, but it's my first big step into what I can't see.  And, yet, I know I will be celebrating the awe of seeing my new third graders make decisions that will impact us for the whole school year! After all, it is their class, not just mine!  

Let me know what you think by leaving a comment with your successes or even your fears about this process!  It's going to be an awesome journey this school year, so stop back by!  I'm not even ready to end this this summer, so expect more posts as ideas and new knowledge found comes my way!