Life-Changing Pins!

Hello y'all!

Today I'm participating in the Life Changing Pins Link-Up with Jennifer at Laman's Terms. There have been many, many life-changing pins for me, but I'm narrowing it down to these. You can totally follow my Pinterest board if you want to see more, though!

Our school population is a little transient. We are an urban, high-poverty school, so the chances of getting new students are high. That's why I now make three of these wonderful bags for WHEN I get new students. Right now, as I'm assembling my classroom, I have them sitting at my on my kidney table and I just pass extra papers to those chairs as well as my normal seats. I even have gone as far as to putting an extra bound folder book (those 8 pocket organizers are what I give my kids) and extra clips for all our clip charts (22, 23, 24 since I already have 21 kids). Just grab and go!

I had to make my own mailbox system this year because I didn't really have the cash for one of those fancy mailbox systems and I needed to spend my district allocations on other things. They are going to have to last a few years, and being cardboard they don't have a big enough lip to write on. Enter this genius idea! I just made a Word doc with a table sized to the end of the binder clip (tip: if you set your doc to 100% zoom level, then you can hold up your clip next to the screen to get the perfect size as you are adjusting!), printed, cut, and taped on. They look perfect and I'm happy that they will adjust to my OCD as my kids move during the year.

This pin gave me the courage to keep my tables when I moved from being a special area teacher to being a third grade teacher. I've modified it for my classroom, though. Instead of three drawer carts, I found four drawer carts that are the same height and the top drawer of the above pic would actually be two shallower drawers. I'm getting two per table, facing them in opposite directions (back to back), and putting the next table right next to it. This gives me more space. I don't have a pic of what it looks like yet, but here's a pic of my tables to see the general idea since I left space for when my carts arrive. The best part? When students change seats, all they have to do it pull out their drawers and move them to the new location.

Finally, this pin doesn't have an image because it's a video, but it's definitely the MOST life changing ever, and it's Whole Brain Teaching!!! Seriously, do you want to revolutionize the way your classroom runs with just a few tiny procedures? Check this out. I used it as a special area teacher and it WORKED even though I only saw my kids once a week. I definitely plan to carry it forward into third grade this year.

What pins have changed your life? Paste the link in the comments or link up with us!