Greater Than Less Than and Compare and Contrast {Five for Friday}

It's Friday. We've made it through to the other side. I walked outside one night this week, looked up and said, out loud, "Well that explains so much." 

I'm linking up with Kacey from Doodle Bugs to celebrate the start of the weekend! 

It snowed on Monday. We knew it was coming, but we went to school on a regular schedule and stayed all day long!! I'm whining really...there was really not a lot of snow to speak of, but we've had so little and every other district around us had an early dismissal. In years past this would've been enough to close us, but times are changing!! We live in a very rural county and the back roads get bad in a hurry....

My little friends were having a hard time with greater than and less than this week. I cut out some signs using my Silhouette Cameo and we used them during class. First, we looked at some problems on the Smartboard and they held up the signs. Then, we did this worksheet and they were able to move the sign around on their desks. Last, we had a little fun..who couldn't use a little fun, right? 

We turned the signs into math gators, complete with a math sentence. 

It was an exciting math day. I love getting to do projects like these just as much as the kids do!

We've spent a lot of time on compare and contrast lately, so I decided to change it up a little this week. The kids worked in pairs to compare different scenes in our story this week. 

post its = instant fun.

The Sunday Superbowl Sale in a lot of TPT stores caused me to get clip art fever, like I needed any help! Since then I've been updating the covers of some of my TPT products. Here are two of my favorites! 

I got an iPad Mini this week!! I've been debating about getting one, but finally decided to go for it last week and it arrived on Wednesday!  I'm having so much fun playing with it. 

Question of the week: What apps do I need to download? 

Taking a Second Look at the To File Basket

I love to be organized. However, the switch to 1st grade has made organizing a little tricky! The idea of knowing that I had papers in messy stacks all over the room was driving me crazy! It has taken me about half the year to get my filing groove back and I wanted to share the system I came up with. 

This crate was the key to my success! It started out as that adorable, totally organized idea floating around on Instagram. I made a folder for each day of the month and was supposed to stash all the papers I needed on any given day in there. Well....that was a beautiful idea and it really spoke to the organizing nerd in me, but it just didn't WORK for me. That isn't how I plan...

I already had a good system for organizing the papers I was going to use with my students, but I needed a way to sort the papers I wanted to keep for next year. I went back to the drawing board and came up with a different way to use the same crate and eliminate my old "to file" basket. 

I used paper clip tabs and washi tape to make temporary labels. Those labels correspond with the lesson numbers in our reading series. After I make copies for the week I just slide the master copies down in the file and my filing is done! 

This is much easier than the old "to file" basket that would overflow with papers! When I started sorting out the papers by week or topic I had a hard time remembering exactly which week I had taught each skill. This system solved that problem.  When we finish with a reading unit I pull out all the folders from that unit, hole punch the papers, and put them in my binder. 

In the back of the crate I also have a file for all the holidays we will celebrate at school. I love having such easy access to all those folders because who knows when I'll find a great Halloween idea in April?! Having them out in the open means I'm much more likely to file it now than pile it up and lose it! 

Last but not least is a file for all the love notes from my sweeties. 

How do you file papers in your classroom?