A Jump Start For Next Year...

As the end of school approaches I know most teachers are probably thinking...

...and rightfully so! After the million reviews, multiple programs, testing, fun days and field days the last thing you want to think about is next Fall! However, I'm going to share a few ideas for the early print order planners in hopes to save you a few of those precious summer hours this year! 

First, The Welcome Brochure. When I first began teaching I shared all the information parents would need to know in a Disclosure Document. It served it's purpose well, but was black and white, three pages long and looked boring. In hopes for parents to keep all the important information on hand I spruced up my document. I turned it into a colorful brochure with a brief statement about the things I found myself repeating during the first parent teacher conferences. Here is what it looks like...

The brochure was really easy to make, in fact it was already made for me in a Microsoft Word template. There are so many designs to choose from and I didn't need to spend hours decorating my own. Most of the work came when I had to decided what I wanted it to say, so I included this example for you to browse as you adapt this idea for your own classroom specifics!

Second, and last, (I know your busy) is the SMASH Journal. This idea came from putting a Smash Book and Wreck This Journal together to create a SMASH Journal for my students. 

I absolutely love journal writing and struggled with my students lack of love for journal time. I found that they were bored with following a journal prompt and that I didn't care so much about the responses but wanted them to practice their writing skills. The SMASH Journal was the perfect answer! Not only were students practicing writing, but they were doing a lot more of it! 

How? Well, at the end of everyday we opened up to a new page in our SMASH Journal and the students knew to follow these three tasks using complete sentences and correct capitalization and punctuation...

I have 8 format pages, (like the one above) they are all different and I rotate them throughout the book. I counted the number of school days and make copies accordingly. Students get to decorate their own cover. I decided to make some special SMASH pages for holidays, first day of school, etc. Here are some examples...

After implementing the SMASH Journal into my classroom I saw my students write more than they ever had and they truly cherished their journals.