November Busy Teachers and how I use them!

Now that I have my entire year's worth of Busy Teachers completed, I get slightly giddy when I go to print them out.  

Kinder 1st Half          Kinder 2nd Half

1st Complete Set

Second 1st Half       Second 2nd Half

I made them so life would be easier for us teachers, but OMG did it make mine harder for a little while :)  Trust- it is all worth it now!

My new way of organizing that I just love: I printed out the whole packet and put it in a 1/2 inch binder.  Then I tag the pages that I 100% know that I will be using in the month.  I usually have a mom come and make class sets of all the pages that I want at once.  This saves me tons of time standing at the copier each month.  

How I use my Busy Teacher pages:

1. Morning Work- on days that our schedule is tight, I use these!

2. Independent Practice/Spiral Review- I haven't technically "taught" time this year, but since hour and half hour is a first grade expectation, I use my time pages as periodic review.  It makes the main unit SO much easier!

3.  Math Work Stations- this one is pretty self explanatory!

4. Sub Plans-  I cannot even tell you how many times these packets have bailed me out when I had a puking child :)

5. Reading Response Notebooks- One of our daily routines is that my students respond to our whole group lesson/text through writing.  This page is an example of what my parents would glue into their notebooks to show me their understanding of Story Elements. 

6.  Guided Reading/Word Work- Once again, pretty self explanatory, but in the 2nd grade world I have found one of those mandatory speed bumps many of my readers hit is the "figuring out how to decode longer, non-cvc words" phase. This type of page is a great teaching tool to really focus on those tougher blend words!

7. Homework-  Once or twice a week I like to review an already established skill at home so I can communicate expectations with parents. I *understand* homework is a touchy subject, but based on the families/students that I have, this works for us!

8. The Occasional Writing Prompt- If you have read many of my posts, you know that I am a HUGE Writers Workshop advocate.  Like the biggest. I do understand that answering questions, responding to prompts is also important though!  This prompt will be used in my classroom next week!

If you are interested in any of my November Busy Teachers, simply click on the pictures below to find them!