Not Quite Ready for Summer to End... but Starting to Gear up for the Next School Year!

Even though it is always a little sad to see the summer come to an end and leave the days of having all day to do things with my girls, the fact is that the summer is coming to an end in the next few weeks. Since it is inevitable, I have decided to try to be positive about this fact and begin thinking about how I want to start out the school year. As of right now, I will be teaching only 6th Grade. This excites me because I love teaching 6th Graders, they are so much fun!

Pine Cone Bees for my classroom decor.

My husband and I have started raising bees and since I have always been fascinated with bugs and other animals, I have decided to make my room into a nature theme this year. I have some ideas and have even made some bees out of pine cones and have plans to sew some butterflies. I plan to get some fake leaves/flowers also to put around my room. (See some of my later blog posts to see the finished decor.) I think I will make a materials basket for each row and will be focusing on really establishing student jobs. I have downloaded Laura Candler's Freebie entitled FREE CLASSROOM ECONOMY PACK that I will be adapting for my own classroom. She has some really great resources and offers a lot of FREEBIES. You can also check back at some posts later on in the school year to see how these ideas pan out.

To establish my norms and also to introduce students to the Common Core Curriculum, I am planning to start out with some ideas that will reinforce the basic skills students will need to be successful. I will be focusing on Multiplication Facts and Long Division first. Surprizingly, 6th Graders still tend to struggle with these topics. I am going to break down the process and help students understand why it is important to know their Multiplication Facts and how to successfully be able to use Long Division. Please preview the lesson I plan to use below. It is also available at my TpT store. If you like this lesson I would appreciate you clicking the "Follow" star as I will be adding products that I feel are concept based and of high quality and you will be notified of new products on a regular basis.

I am currently working on a Unit for The 6th Grade Number System Common Core State Standard and it will be finished soon! Good luck in the new year.