Creating a Year-Long Theme: Top Ten Reasons

A year-long theme is one of my favorite things to set up when getting ready for the new school year. Here are my top ten reasons why I use a theme for my classroom.

10.  It's fun. It creates a spark of fun in the classroom and I like starting with a fresh idea and decor each year.

9. It creates memories for the students. They remember the different themes as they have passed through the classroom. They continue to talk about it. I hear previous students, when checking out the current year's theme, talk about last year's theme..."Oh remember when we had a circus theme? I loved the circus tent. It was so fun!"

8. It inspires others. Teaching with a theme inspires others to push the limits and create a spark in their spaces too.

7. It's a creativity spark. Just like when teaching writing, I tell my students to start with a tiny seed idea and not a watermelon idea, a theme helps to narrow the scope of my curriculum. It gives me direction and a jumping off point. Then I start to get all my creative juices flowing. And I find the perfect ideas to bring my theme to life.

6. Old students will spread the word that your classroom is the place to be. Word of mouth is the best testimony of what is going on in your classroom. I've found students, current, previous, and future ones to be excited when they step into the classroom and find out the theme for the year. Also previous students like to peek into our class to catch a glimpse of what our theme is for the year. 

5. It promotes a sense of community within the class. Students are enjoying a common experience that is unique to our classroom. They are proud of the way it looks and the excitement it envokes. I hear them talking about it. 

4. You can spend more time in class on one topic because you can cover many standards on the curriculum with integrated learning, which leaves more time to go in depth. Win!

3. It makes planning for the year more effiecent. Lessons from various subjects can go together.

2. Integrating curriculum is best practice. And teaching with a theme makes it very easy to tie things together. Students have a chance to go more in-depth into the topics you are teaching because they are learning about them. not just once, but several times throughout the day. Otherwise, they are learning seven or so different subjects throughtout the day and each one is related only to itself. 

1. The students get seriously excited about it. And afterall, isn't that what it's all about? If I can have my students walk into my classroom, take one look and be excited about the learning that will happen here, I have just won a huge battle. Then I work hard to keep them excited throughout the year, but that's another story for another time.

To me, these are all very good reasons why I continue to push myself to create themes that will add excitement into my classroom. There is nothing better than students excited to learn and for me, this is the first step toward that goal.

Year Long Theme Part One: OverviewAll

Using a year-long theme in my classroom is a passion of mine. It started many years ago when I ran across this book Creating a Year-Long Theme .

 
It is a great starting point. Then later, I stumbled across this blog. I really loved how she took the year-long theme and used it in the classroom decor.

So I started small. I think the first year I used the sports theme. The kids enjoyed it. About 5 years ago, I moved schools and in the last 3-4 years, I have gotten my themes up to the level that I have wanted. If you are trying this for the first year, I recommend starting small. But every year, add more into the theme. Incorporate content areas. I teach in a multigrade 3rd and 4th classroom and so I will have my students for two years in a row. I cannot use the same theme every year, and I think I would seriously get bored of that anyway. So for now, I have created a four year rotation of themes and have gone all out in planning them. I have a brainstorm theme. a circus theme, a woods/camping theme, and this year I am putting together a travel theme.

Here is a sneak peek of some of the items I am working with for the theme this year. I will be adding a few other touches here and there when I get into my classroom and will share those photos here.

My color scheme is going to be teal, pink, and gold. Think tassel banners and hot air ballons, plane garland, maps, and travel themed posters. I will post pictures of my room next week when I finish it up.

But for now, you can take a look at last year's camping theme (more here.)

And here is a picture of the circus reading tent I created for my classroom when we had the circus theme. I do not currently have any other photos of my classroom or circus theme from that year because I lost all the files on my external hard drive and am waiting to repair it. 

What I have learned is that teaching using a year-long theme matters. It matters to the students. They are excited about the decor and theme for the year. And that's always one of the first things I hear them ask me each year before they see the room...."What's this year's theme?" And it matters to me. I enjoy the continuety and fun of a theme with matching decor. 

What about you? Are you thinking of a theme this year? Share if you like.

School Bags

I have found that in years past, I have a ton of things to bring home. And all that adds up to a lot of weight and bags too heavy to carry. And too much stuff to complete in one night anyway. So this year I decided to purchase a smaller school bag. One that will not hold so much. One that will hold the right amount for me to be able to complete in a night. Introducing the Scout Bag. This is the Pocket Rocket Bag in the Panky pattern. And I LOVE it.

Here's what I love about it. First of all, it's super cute. Love the fun and funky pink paisley/flower design with black straps and trim with white stitching.I love the 6 deep pockets. The top zips. There is a flap of pockets inside. The flap has one zipper pocket, one open pocket, and a tiny clear pocket with a snap that would fit a thumb drive or SD card or a few coins. The material it is made from feels like a recyclable shopping bag or Ikea bag, only extra thick. I don't love that, but it is sturdy and will probably be much easier to keep clean than fabric or canvas. Overall, I am really happy with my purchase and I am looking forward to carrying this stylish bag (purchased on Amazon) for my first day back to school...and the entire year.

Homework Club

Let me just start by saying that as a general rule, I do not assign daily homework. Sure there will be an occasional assignment here or there, or a project, but I generally believe that students are at "work" all day, and they need some down time when they get home....time without having to do more work and practice that really in the long run does not increase their ability much and leaves you wondering who really did the assignment in the first place. So every year when I tell my philosophy on homework to my class, I get a cheer. With that said, there are many students who do have homework daily because what is assigned in class doesn't get done, so it becomes homework. 

Students that have a difficult time staying focused in class are also the students who generally seem to have a hard time completing it at home as well. So I felt the need to try something to help my students want to complete their homework. One year I tried homeworkology. It's a form of Monopoly that some teacher created to help the students be encouraged to complete their work. I have tried it before and while it was fun, I found it hard to maintain. I needed something easy.

After searching Pinterest, I ran across the idea of a homework club. It's basically a board with numbers. Each student is assigned a number. Each month, all numbers are placed on the board and students can start fresh. If they turn their assignments in on time, they stay on the board. If not, their number comes down. Students who stay on the board all month are treated to some special activity, food, or gift. Some of the things I've done in the past are: special pens, sunglasses, hotchoclate, cookies that they get to skip an assignment to decorate, and cupcakes.

If a student makes it all year without any late assignments, the prize is bigger. Last year I had only one student and they received the game Blokus as  a grand prize.

I created my own version of the homework club because I wanted it to match my theme for the year. So I printed out two giant jars that say "Homework Club" and I typed numbers on some lightning bug clipart. So I have two jars of lightning bugs for my homework club board. When a student doesn't turn something in, their bug leaves the jar.

I like that the homework club uses numbers so that students do not know who the other numbers belong to.

How do you handle homework in your class? Do you use some type of incentive? Leave a comment below telling me how your handle homework and  include your address if you'd like to get a free copy of my homework club jars and fireflies. Please leave a comment by the end of the month to get your free homework club printable.

Hitting the Road Running

I do this to myself every...single...year. Come back from Christmas vacation the day before I have to go back to school. Last year was much worse. We crawled into bed around 1AM, making my 5AM wake up time oh so much fun. This year I was a little smarter. We came home around 5PM and I had a few hours to settle in...plus it helped that I was left all my assignments ready for the day back. Overall, I was tired, but things were definitely easier this year.

One of the things we've been up to lately in class is studying writing directions (how to paragraphs). I introduced this in a fun way that the students could just not resist. Passing out gum and allowing students to chew it in the classroom has a way of making something exciting. We read about the history of gum and also used this little packet to write about how to blow a bubble.

We're doing one more piece of direction writing in class with a how-to make rootbeer floats peice. Can't wait to surprise them with that tomorrow. Coming out of a long weekend, we need to spice it up and have some more fun.

Next week, each student will be presenting a recipe project to the class. They will make a no-cook recipe (such as smores, trail mix, salad, no bake cookies, etc.), show us how to make it, and create a poster with directions and the recipe. They will also bring a sample to share with the class. I know a lot of public schools do not allow students to bring in homemade items, but my private school does allow it, so I'm feeling fortunate about that. I'm sure we'll have some good eats.

Here's a recipe book cover I've put together to compile the recipe book for the class.

Drug Education

We've been learning about the digestive system and also about taking care of our bodies. We built our own digestive system and took a piece of food throughit in a hands-on exploration that was totally gross and had the kids super excited (including my two 8th/9th grade helpers that were in the classroom during that time). You can check out that experiment over at this site. Then we made predictions about how far our food travels before it exits our bodies. And boy, were the students surprised when we measured out our entire digestive system. Such fun!

We used the Aims Education book to learn about the food pyramid and how much of each type of food we need. We talked about exercise and how that is important to keep our bodies strong and healthy.

Then last week, we focused on drugs and smoking. We started out by talking about the different types of drugs, why people do drugs, and we read a book that shared the effects of drugs on the body. I had seen something similar to this in several places on the Internet, so I made my own IPod activity for my class to use. They each received an IPod coloring sheet and could decorate it any way they wanted. Then they had a sheet that said, "This is how I tune out drugs." We drew a picture of our answer and wrote all about it. I talked to them about how it is important to decide how you will avoid drugs now before you've been tempted. You are more likely to stay strong if you determine ahead of time than if you try to say no at the moment you are tempted. I talked to them about surrounding themselves with good friends that will help them to make good decisions. I told, them from my experience, about how I never had to face drugs because I chose good friends all along. I've never been offered drugs or pressured by peers about taking drugs. We talked about how important the decisions we make now are. And I tied in (since we are a Christian school and can) the Bible verse, 1 Corinthians 6:19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?


The students were so excited about decorating their IPODs and it didn't seem like "work" at all. I love when they connect with what we are learning and they peppered me with questions. We discussed second-hand smoke and how to deal with parents or grandparents who smoke so that we can protect ourselves from their smoke as much as possible. 
Here are some examples of the finished projects. 

Multiplication Mania

Each year, we kick off our classroom study of multiplication with Multiplication Mania Week. It's a week to get our feet wet into what times tables are, through hands-on activities that the students enjoy. Yes, math CAN be fun. (Some of them seem to think that is an impossibility, but if you were to see them during this week, you'd never realize it.)

I've been having Multiplication Mania Week for several years now, but I cannot remember exactly where (on the net) I first hear about this concept. This week is different in each classroom and this year was definitely the best one so far.

Most days we started out with multiplication bingo. We used little snack pieces such as goldfish or M&M's as markers and that made it that much more fun. There are many sites where you can download free bingo cards, but we decided to save the copies and just use our math journals to create our own. It was easier that way to make sure each child had a different card so no one would win at the same time.

We spent about 1 hour doing different math game rotations. The first day, I chose four math games and taught the class how to play them. I then divided them into four different teams and they spent about 10-15 minutes playing each game. The next day, I added several more games so that I had enough different games so that they could do a game rotation with a partner.

Here's a look at some of the games I included. All of them were easy to put together and now that they are at math centers, they are easy to maintain.

This one is Multiplication Tic-Tac-Toe. I already had a Tic-Tac-Toe board game and just threw in a set of multiplication cards. The student must draw a card and solve the problem before placing an "X" or "O" on the board. Of course, three in a row wins.

Another board game that I transitioned into a multiplication game was Connect Four. Add in a set of multiplication cards, and viola'. You have a new math game. Easy, peasy.

This one I found somewhere on Pinterest, I cannot remember where. I use to play this game for reading, though and it was called Bang. But this one is a twist on that and it is called Zap. You label popsicle sticks with multiplication problems. The players take turns pulling out a stick and solving the problem. But watch out! Some of the sticks are labeled with "Zap!" If you get zapped, you must return all your sticks to the container and play continues. Whoever has the most sticks when the time runs out or the container is empty is the winner.

Multiplication Domino War was one of the favorites. I found this one over here. The way it is played is just like war. Each player draws a domino and turns it over. They then multiply both sides of their domino together. Whoever has the larger product keeps both dominoes. If it's a tie, they each keep one domino. Whoever has the most dominoes when all the dominoes are used, is the winner. A lot of my students really loved this one.

Spiral Multiplication was another Pinterest game. I'm not sure of the website that it is found on though. It is super easy. The students use the number and ace cards from a deck to create a spiral out of the cards (as pictured). The players each use a marker to move on top of the cards. Start at the outside of the spiral. Roll one die. Move that many spaces and multiply the number on the card by the number on the die. If you correctly answer it, you stay put. If not, you must move back the number on the die. First to the center of the spiral wins.

There were several more games that we played that were not pictured. My personal favorite was one called Fit that was played with Lego's. Here's a link to that one. And other fun one used arrays. It was a great game for visualization the multiplication problems on graph paper. Here's the link.

Each day, we also had drills. This year I adopted a new program called Kicking It! Multiplication that has been a big hit in my classroom. Previously, we have done mad minutes, but I like this new program for several reasons. One reason is that it is based on brain research. Also, the students still get a timed drill, but they also have verbal practice. And the best reason of all is that this program is set up with a Karate theme. Students can move up levels and earn belts for learning a certain amount of facts. It's amazing! I purchased it over here on TPT if you are interested. She also sells it in a addition/subtraction version.How fun is that? Here's a look at my class practicing for their yellow belts before the timing.

On the final day of our multiplication mania week, we had a whole class game of Multiplication Jeopardy. I made sheets with questions for several different categories. Each category had five questions worth different amounts (100, 200, 300, 400, 500). To cover the different areas of multiplication that we were using, I chose these categories: arrays, equal groups, equations, story problems, and write a story problem.

Probably the highlight of the whole week was a math incentive that I tweaked from over here. It was our multiplication store. Each student had the opportunity to earn money based on how they did on their daily math assignment from the book. I kept it simple and followed this formula...they got $1 for an "A", 80 cents for a "B", 70 cents for a "C", 60 cents for a "D", 50 cents for an "F", and nothing for an incomplete assignment. After grading math, I placed their total at the top of a 3x5 card so they knew how much they had to spend. Parents had previously donated different items that had small pieces such as goldfish, M&M's, candy corn, pretzels, marbles, etc. Each item was priced from 2 cents up to 25 cents for some rolled candy. Students had to use their index card to fill out an order form for each item they wanted. They listed the name of the item, price, how many of that item they wanted, and then multiplied to see how much they would pay for that item. They did that for each item they wanted to purchase and then kept a running total so that they would not spend more than they had. Needless to say, they were sold!

It was a fun week and great classroom tradition. I tried lots of new things this year and had many more things planned but did not have the time to complete them. I wanted to do some multiplication art projects and also make a few multiplication cootie catchers (or fortune tellers, as some people call them), but we just did not have time to squeeze it all in. Maybe next year.