Monday Made It

I only have one more Monday before work begins.  It boggles my mind how quickly each summer goes.  I took this week to get some stuff ready for my first week of school:

1. Parent Flip Book

I've always wanted to give parents a flip book with all pertinent classroom information but I did not want to do all that cutting and pasting in order to get it working, plus I wanted it to be double sided.  So, I finally sat down and created a template for it.  It took a VERY long time and lots of test prints, but I got it done :-) I'm really happy with how it turned out.  I'll be copying a bunch of extras so that I am able to hand these to parents when new students enroll in my class.

This is a little video of what it looks like on the inside:

After a week of measuring and test prints, I finally was able to make my flip book double sided to not waste any paper. No cutting or gluing or lining things up! Just print and fold👍 Now I have the template ready to go forever 👏👏👏 #teachersofig #teachersofinstagram #teachersfollowteachers #iteachtoo

A video posted by Learning in Wonderland (@learninginwonderland) on Jul 14, 2015 at 11:07am PDT

2. I also made my student mailboxes this week. 

I started using these last year near the third quarter and they were life savers.  I wasn't sure how they would work out at that point so I didn't bother making labels, I just taped Post-it notes to each drawer :-/  #keepingitreal. The drawer mailboxes worked so well I decided to make formal labels for this upcoming year. 

I found that putting a folder at the bottom was the perfect way to build a portfolio throughout the year. I was able to put stand out pieces for each child in their folder and I pulled them out for parent conferences, retention meetings, tutoring focus, IEP meetings etc.  Those last minute IEP meetings were of no worry because I was able to pull out that folder and take it with me without having to gather last minute work.  Then I put graded assignments in the drawers and I sent that work home on a weekly basis (usually Thursdays).  Sending all student work home on one day was a new thing I tried this year also.  The parents loved it because they were able to see all the work at one moment without papers getting lost each day on the way home. I excited to have these from the beginning of the year! 

So that is it for me!  What have you made recently?  Link up with Tara for Monday Made It and share :-)