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Saturday, November 16, 2013

I have a Helpful Hint for you! {And a Freebie!}

Have you heard of the fun linky parties that has been going on this week over at Blog Hoppin'? Each day has had a different theme! I'm actually linking up with Tuesday's Helpful Hints linky (on Saturday!)

http://imbloghoppin.blogspot.com/2013/11/h-is-for-helpful-hints-linky-party.html

Are you constantly passing out papers to everyone throughout the school day?

Well last year I decided to implement "Paper Helpers." Each student at each table in my room would take turns being the "Paper Helper" each week. Anytime I needed to pass papers out these students would come to me and I'd give them the papers for their table. Also, when anything needed to be collected these students would gather everything from their table, put them all the same direction, and place them in our "Turn in Basket."

It worked like a charm!

Then this summer I was doing some blog stalking professional development ;) and came across a different variation of this from Teaching with a Passion.

She basically did the same thing, except instead of "Paper Helpers"she called them "Table Captains" (How did I not think of that!?) lol. Also, instead of rotating students each day, like I did last year, she suggested rotating weekly, which I liked a lot more!

So I decided to switch it up a little bit this year! I implemented her "Table Captain" ideas and I can honestly say that my students LOVE it this year! They get WAY excited when it's their week to be the captain. I even had a lot of parents mention it to me during parent teacher conferences a few weeks ago!

Here are some pictures of what it looks like in my classroom this year:





 I found the little cones at Dollar Tree....I wanted different colors for each table, but I was searching RIGHT before school started and had to go to 3 different Dollar Tree's JUST to find these ones! I was just grateful to find any.  (I was at Dollar Tree recently though and there are a BUNCH of them again.)

I got the adorable picture frames for each table at Ikea for $0.99! (LOVE a good deal.)

I made the table numbers for the picture frames, along with the stars for each cone. I printed the stars on cardstock, 2 of each, and glued a popsicle stick in between them. Then I just stuck the stick into each cone.

Each student has a name tag at their spot on the table, and when it's their turn to be captain, they get to put the cone above their name.

In addition to this, I have a "Table Captain" display on my whiteboard at the front of the room. I put the student's names at each table on each circle. The star turns around to point to who is the captain for the week. After everyone has a turn being the captain I switch their spots around, but you could just rotate it around again too!


This could probably work if your students sit in rows too!

Is this something you'd like to do?
No need to make your own labels and stars....just click HERE to download mine!


Let me know if you use it. Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!



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