Going beyond the crate seat

This year, I plan on diving in head first into flexible seating.  To make this work, though, I need a wide range of seating options for the students.  My first go to was to make some crate seats.  They're not too hard to make and they offer a great storage option, which goes hand in hand with my goal of getting more organized!  I decided to take the crate seat idea one step further.  With the addition of one simple step, I turned the crate seat into a multi-purpose tool: a crate seat, lap desk, and dry erase board!  Below, I explain step by step how to make them and I briefly talk about some of their great uses!  I also have a YouTube video below, which takes you through the process step-by-step!  They are super easy, inexpensive, and a great alternative to your normal seating.  My friend, Miss Tinnish, taught me how to make the crate seats, so I know they worked for her firsties, and I know my fifth graders will love them!  You can go ahead and just watch the video, but I will also type out the steps in detail with pictures!  Hope you find it informational and useful!

  

First, the materials you need: 

• mattress pad
• sheet of wood
• sheet of white panel board
• fabric squares 
• staple gun
• hammer
• scissors or knife
• duct tape
• ribbon
• heavy duty glue or liquid nails

First, you want to place your fabric square face down so that the less colorful side is facing you.  I went to Walmart and bought some pre-cut fabric squares.  They were super inexpensive and SO MUCH EASIER than cutting the fabric myself.  

On top of the fabric square, in the center you want to place your mattress pad with the flat side facing down.  At Walmart, I also bought a regular full size mattress pad and measured and cut it into the size I needed.  I got about 15 pieces of mattress pad from one full sized mattress pad.  

On top of the mattress pad, you want to place the piece of wood with the rougher side facing the mattress pad.  I went to Home Depot with one of my crates, picked out my sheet of wood, and one of the employees measured the crate and cut the sheet of wood into the exact size I needed!  It was awesome and I didn't have to do anything other than transport the wood!  Seems pretty simple so far, huh?  Just a bunch of stacking... Here comes the real work! 

Starting with the long edges, you are going to want to pull the fabric over the side of the wood and use your staple gun to staple the fabric to the side of the wood facing you.  I like to put 5 staples on the long sides.  I put the first staple right in the middle, then one in each corner, and then one in between those three placer staples.  

After doing one long side, I go to the other side and repeat the same process.  This is what it will look like: 

Once both long sides are done, I move on to the short edges.  On the short edges, I only put 4 staples.  I like to make the corners neat, so I tuck the fabric between the wood and the mattress pad.  It is like to wrapping a present, and at this point, the edge should look something like a manila envelope lip. 

Then it is just a matter of pulling the fabric over and stapling again!! 

Once you are done with that, it is time to add your handles!  This will make pulling the seat out of the crate easier and it will make carrying the lap desks easier for the students!  You're going to take a piece of ribbon and cut it to whatever length you think is appropriate for your handles.  The piece of ribbon needs to be long enough so that when folded in half, the handle is as long as you want it.  You're going to fold the ribbon in half and then staple.  It should look like the image below: 

Once you've done this on both sides, you should take your duct tape and reinforce the fabric on the wood.  You are going to follow the edges of the fabric so that it looks something like this: 

Now, my duct tape is purple, which I know doesn't match the whole turquoise and grey scheme I've going on.  With my crate seats and the added step I do, it doesn't matter because the tape is not going to be seen at all.  If you are going to stop here and not do these next few steps, I recommend getting duct tape that matches your fabric and ribbons.  If you are looking for JUST a crate seat, then congrats!  You're done!!! But, if you want to take the traditional crate seat just a bit further, then we've got a few more steps.  

It is time for your heavy duty glue/ liquid nails!  You are going to put dots of whichever you get on the back side of the seat, wood face up.  You are going to put 11 dots of the liquid glue in total.  This is where you should put them: 

Once you have these down, you are going to get your piece of panel board (while I was at Home Depot, I had the same employee cut a sheet of panel board for me, in the same dimensions as the wood!)  With the white part facing up (towards you), you are going to firmly press down the panel board on top of the wood.  Hold firmly for a few minutes and then you are going to want to let them sit for a few hours to make sure they completely dry and adhere.  

Here is your final product: 

On one side, you have a comfy crate seat and on the other you now have a white board!  If students want to work independently on the floor and need somewhere to do work, they can grab one of these flip it to use as a lap desk, and grab a dry erase marker to do their work!  It is functional and flexible!  This is going to going to be an AMAZING addition to my flexible seating classroom!  I am SO excited to put these to use!  How about you?  Do you have any other ideas for how we can step up and transform the traditional crate seat?  Any questions, comments, or ideas please comment below!  Thanks for reading and I hope this was useful!! Follow me on instagram for more snap shots of my classroom as it all comes together: @funinfifthwithmisschmura 

What is your biggest weakness?

I can say with 100% certainty that organization is my biggest weakness.  My creativity, bizareness, and free spiritedness have a tendency to contribute to little clusters of messes around my room (both in the classroom and at home).  Then I can't find something or I forget something.  It's the worst sometimes!  I have a multitude of goals for this year, but my primary one is to keep myself organized!! Well, I took the first step in this journey to organizing my crazy and got myself an AMAZING planner.

   

This planner is an Erin Condren.  It was a little pricey, but what I've definitely learned in life is that you get what you pay for!  And this planner definitely gives you a bang for your buck! First of all, as you can see they're adorable!! They have SO many different designs, this just happened to be the one I chose since blue is my favorite color, and I LOVE the quote on the front!  But, I definitely didn't get the planner just because it was cute!  It is extremely practical and has some AMAZING features specifically for teachers! 

First of all, aesthetically there are so many components that aren't only cute but are functional also.  The front cover has a space for your name and any other information you'd like to contribute.  What I don't have pictured is right after that cover page, there are two pages that have sections for: personal information, access codes and usernames, web resources, classroom volunteers, special events, and helpful hints for the substitute.  At the back there is a two pocket folder for where you can add any paperwork you might need to.  All throughout the planner there are little inspirational quotes at any natural page break.  The one I pictured says, "The art of teaching is to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge."  Finally, both the front and back cover are laminated so you can use dry erase markers for making easily editable to do lists and what not.  

Before we even get to the monthly calendar, there are a few more features you'll find that are extremely useful!  There is a section with holidays and dates to remember.  I loved this part because it doesn't just do generic holidays, it also includes dates like authors birthdays.  I thought this would be great for lesson planning and planning a day in dedication to different authors and important people.  It also has a space to keep track of absences.  I think this will be great in easily catching the repeat offenders.  I know my district's website is a little confusing to navigate in regards to absences, so this will be easy to just look at or pull out during a parent meeting.  There is also a space for graphing information, and we as teachers ALL know how important tracking data and information is!  The final section before we hit the calendars is the a space to keep track of long range plans.  I like the idea of having a space that has the general long range plans in and I plan on pinning a copy of my details plans right behind it.  

Finally we get to the calendar.  I love that with Erin Condren, you can choose what month to start your planner with.  I chose August because that is when school starts for me, but you can choose any month you please and they will give you 12 months, starting from there!  After the 12 months, there is a section for daily lessons.  I'm not the type of person to read my detailed lesson plans as I teach throughout the day.  Rather, I like to write up a general outline of activities-a skeleton of lesson-so to speak and go from there. This will be extremely helpful with this since before I would just write it on a piece of paper every morning and end up with papers every where or losing my skeleton outline throughout the day.  Like this I can pre-enter every skeleton over the weekend and have it all in one place that will be hard to lose!  Finally, we come to my FAVORITE feature: THE STUDENT CHECKLIST.  This could just be me being a dork, but I love this feature because I think it'll make inputting grades SO much quicker.  Like this I'll be able to just go down the list, and plug in grades on the computer rather than have to find each students assignment and then their name and then type in the grade.  This will definitely cut some steps and save some time.  

Overall, I'm extremely happy with this planner and definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a good planner that allows for great organization.  Hopefully this keeps me organized and helps me organize the rest of my classroom (and life haha)!  What is your biggest weakness?  What is your step 1 in improving yourself?  Reflection is key in our job!  Never forget that!   

Family Engagement in the 21st century

Family engagement - a phrase most teachers have heard at least a hundred times (maybe a thousand).  It leads to a multitude of questions:

• How are you involving parents in the classroom? 
• How are you getting information to parents? 
• Can they access that information with ease and is it in a language they can understand? 
• How many parent volunteers do you have? 

The list just goes on and on.  As a fifth grade teacher, I know that many of the half sheet flyers and notes to parents I send don't always make it home.  They'll magically disappear somewhere between my classroom and the student's front door. Flyers and paper reminders are great tools, but I always found myself wondering, are they enough?  Am I really doing everything I can to reach out to every family? After some reflection, I decided that the honest answer was no.  Yes, I was already doing a lot-paper flyers, phone calls when it was warranted-but I was ignoring a wonderful tool that would open up so many possibilities!  

THE INTERNET- DUH! It hit me one night as I sat on my brother's couch.  Why not make a website... it wouldn't have to be anything over the top, I mean my families know I'm a teacher not a web designer- just enough to get information out that is easily accessible at any time!  The process was actually super easy and not too time consuming!  I am so happy with and proud of the results, and I wanted to share the details with all of you! 

First, my mode of creation!  I am definitely not an html expert so I needed a website creator that would have some great templates and was easy to maneuver.  I decided to go with Wix Website Editor.  They had SO many amazing templates and had great reviews when I did some research.  And, it is FREE!  (As teachers, we all love anything free!) I love the way their home site was set up with different templates being sorted into different categories.  I went to the community and education category and found a template I fell in love with! 

With my template chosen, a login created, and all the enthusiasm you could imagine, it was time to choose exactly what information to put into the site and give it the "Miss Chmura" flair.

My first step was setting up my main page and tool bar.  This will differ depending on the template you choose, but my tool bar had four headings so I made my four pages Home, About Me, Teaching Methods, and Contact/Donate.  What I also loved was that I could add pages under each "main category."  For example, under my Teaching Methods heading, I added a few pages so that my families could see all the different strategies and methods I use.  

The page is easy to operate and aesthetically pleasing!  I've got links to almost anything and everything you could imagine!  Under my Teaching Methods heading, I plan on adding a "What we're learning" section once the year starts so parents can see exactly what standards we're working on, what books we're working with, and even assisting YouTube videos I plan on making so they can assist with homework!  The possibilities are never ending!! 

On my home page, I have a brief introduction, a few pictures, a link to my classes (private) Facebook page, our daily schedule, upcoming events, and a full calendar (which is directly linked to my gmail calendar that I update with only school events).  The home page will serve for big reminders and immediate news I need to get out!  

I love the calendar feature because it helps parents plan accordingly to make sure they are at all the events we plan on offering!  I can even use the calendar to tell parents when I might be out of the classroom because of a professional development!  It's great!! 

The About Me page is pretty straightforward and won't change much throughout the year.  I put a brief introduction with some fun facts and pictures.  I also added a link to THIS BLOG so my families can read more about my passion in the classroom and get more details and how to's in regards to some of our projects.  I think it will be really cool for them to see some of the things I am doing beyond the classroom to share my experiences with the world.  

I broke up the Teaching Methods heading because we just use SO much in our school!  I wanted my families to have a heads up and at least some insight into what we do in the room.  I know structures like Daily 5 can be confusing for some parents since it is SO different from how our generation was taught, so I wanted them to have an extra resource.  I think it is extremely important to be as open and up front with the parents as possible!  I added a "Personal Motivation" page under this heading because I think it is important to get personal with families to build an authentic relationship with them.  This gives them a chance to get some insight into what fuels my passion.  

Finally, I added a Donate/Contact page because as teachers, we all know how important any and all donations are!  There is a link that goes directly to my DonorsChoose page where families can donate and I plan on adding a link to my PayPal so families can also donate that way.  I also mention that families can contact me if they don't feel comfortable making a monetary donation, but would like to donate resources.  I feel like this will be a great option for my families.  Teaching in a low income community, I don't expect many monetary donations, but our families love to give when they can.  This will be a great way to get pencils, paper, crayons, tissues, and all the odds and ends that make up a classroom.  However, if anyone visits my classroom (families or not), that donation option is open.  It's a great way to keep open the option of obtaining donations.  The contact form is pretty straight forward and will be a great way for families to reach out to me if they can't call in or catch me before or after school.  I have the form linked to an email specifically for my classroom and have those emails forwarded to my main account so I don't miss anything! 

I am SO happy with the FINAL PRODUCT.  Click that link if you'd like to see my website all tied together.  I am not the most technological person, but it still looks great and is easy to access!  I provided most of the information in both English and Spanish since Spanish is the language spoken at home for many of my students.  It makes the information easily accessible in another mode and it really wasn't too much work for me.  I spent a few hours (maybe 3 or 4) one evening and I know that was only because I was starting from scratch.  I predict spending an hour biweekly to update and add new information.  

I love the fact that I can link anything!  As of now I have linked this blog, our class's private Facebook page, my DonorsChoose page, and I'm not stopping there!  There are so many potential uses.  Here are a few ideas I have for this website for this year:

• Another form to schedule parent conferences
• Set up a mailing list for email/text reminders
• Providing pictures and more details on projects and assignments
• YouTube tutorials for families to better understand different concepts
• Updating events 
• More fluid communication for families and myself 

That's just a small list, I know there is SO much more!  What ideas can you think of?  Can you see yourself using a website?  I think this will be a great tool to ensure families have access to all of the information all of the time.  I know not all of my families have internet access, so I plan to continue the paper flyers and phone contact, but this is just another great tool in the family engagement cycle!  

With enthusiasm,      

Miss Chmura        

Hellos are in order!

Hi everyone!  When it comes to blogging about education, this is definitely my first time at the rodeo!  You're going to have to bear with me as I figure out all of the ins and outs.  I'm not sure how all of this works, but I'm going to do my best to make this relevant and worthwhile for any potential readers out there!

I started this blog for three reasons.  First, (not trying to toot my own horn) I think I have some pretty great ideas for classroom methods and I want to share them with anyone out there willing to listen.  I feel like I have some FABULOUS ideas for the coming school year and I want to use this as an interface to share them, as well as think them out as clearly as possible.  I am not suggesting that under any circumstances all of my ideas will be completely unique and never done before, but I do think that even the same idea can be done 100 times in 100 different ways--it all depends on the educator in the classroom.  

Second, I feel like many blogs by teachers out there aren't as descriptive as they can be--meaning, they give us the gist when it comes to great ideas, like flexible seating, but don't disclose all of the information in terms of organization, implementation, and pitfalls. There is always something missing to me; my goal is to be very clear on every step of the process in whatever I do.

Third, I want questions and suggestions! Why limit myself to one brain when I can have so many more questioning me or offering suggestions to help me take my ideas to the next level.

For my first post, I just want to introduce myself and give you some insight into where I teach and how I teach.  So, here goes!

Well, my name is Miss Chmura and this is my third year teaching.  I know I am by no means an expert in the field, but I do have a serious passion for the job and my children.  My first year teaching, I taught first grade.  From there, I moved up to fifth grade and found my place in fifth!  I love the content, the possibilities, and-of course-the students!  I teach at an elementary school in Las Vegas, Nevada.  I teach at a Title I school near the downtown area.  The community I teach in is amazing in SO many ways, and you'll get to see exactly how as time goes on through my posts.    

I like to push boundaries and stretch limits when I teach.  (I'm definitely more of an ask for forgiveness, not permission, person.)  I like to think of grandiose ideas when it comes to a topic and have my team, other teachers, and administration talk me through it to help take it from an outrageous, over the top idea into a reality.  My tool of choice in the classroom is novelty!  I love out of the box thinking and lots of songs, motion, and out of the ordinary teaching strategies.  Again, you'll probably see this as time goes on in my posts.

Well, I think that is all that is relevant for right now! If you have any questions, make sure to comment!  I can't wait to get posting and have some amazing collaboration happening among us all!