Monday Made It with a Freebie

My first Monday Made It of the summer! 

AND...my first snake sighting since moving to NC 3 years ago...uuuggghhh!!!  I've heard so many people tell snake stories...hanging from trees, hanging from garage doors (no lie!), slithering across patios...and I'd been feeling very fortunate that I didn't have any snake stories to tell.  Not so anymore!

This morning I was taking some scraps out to our compost bin, and I almost stepped on a BIG, black snake...shudder!  I don't know what I would have done if I'd actually stepped on it...we're not going to think about that.  And I'm glad it was the plain, black variety that everyone says is harmless. But, I still think I'll be having one of my boys run the scraps out to the compost bin for a while!

OK...back to Monday Made It.  I'm linking up with Tara over at 4th Grade Frolics :)

Like I said yesterday, I've been thinking a lot about the upcoming school year, but not doing anything about it.  So, I've started doing!  Today I've crossed three things off my list...I'm feeling productive :)

1. I've added my kids names into my Stick Pick app (love this...you can use it just like a can and craft sticks...it randomly picks the kids names.  And if you want to, you can set it to give you questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy.  I think the app costs about $2).
2. I set up my parent emails and contact list in Outlook (since I teach at a small, Christian school, I have most of my kids information already...I'll only need to add any new students that registered over the summer).
3. I updated my classroom rules posters, AND uploaded them to TPT as a freebie!

Like I said, I teach at a small, Christian school, so I was able to add scriptures to my Classroom Rule posters that show the rules' roots in God's Word.  Each poster also includes examples of what the rule means (ie. Be Kind - use gentle words). 

The rules that I use are simple, and cover just about any situation you can think of:

1. Be Your Best
2. Be Responsible
3. Be Respectful
4. Be Kind
5. Be Safe

I'll often ask one of my kids who's breaking a rule, "Are you being (fill in the blank) right now?  And they'll look down and answer, "No...".  Then I ask them how they can fix it.  I find that it works pretty well the majority of the time...most kids really do want to do the right thing.

Since I know that many of you won't be able to post classroom rules with scripture on them in a public school classroom, I've uploaded these as a Powerpoint file, so you can make any changes that you need to accommodate your classroom and teaching.  If you'd like to grab it, just click on the picture above :)

Enjoy!