Back to School Time Savers

I have a problem with Teacherspayteachers…

It’s highly addictive.

It is almost as bad as pinterest for teachers. I visit the site searching for something that I need for my lesson plans or my classroom. Instead, I find myself adding 10 new items to my wishlist, and more often than not, I end up creating something new anyway! I guess I see it as inspiration at times…

When I can’t find exactly what I am looking for, I view that as a hole that needs to be filled on TeachersPayTeachers. I simply make it myself and post it in my store (see the links below or to the right side). I figure someday, someone else will be looking for the same thing.

Now, 2 of my very most favorite creations have saved me SO much time each year.

Here is how they came about…

Favorite Back-to-School Time Savers: Product #1- A Simple Transportation Chart

I was searching and searching for the perfect way to display the method of transportation that gets each of my kinders home from school. Most of what I found were clip charts that had a sheet for each mode of transportation- Super easy… you write a child’s name on each clothes pin and clip it on to the cute corresponding sheet of paper (you know… after you print, cut, laminate, cut again, and connect with cute ribbon that you perfectly matched…). Not what I was looking for.

Kindergarten students are notorious for touching things that don’t belong to them, so a clothes pin chart terrified me.

I didn’t want to be scrambling to get my kids out the door and to the right place and suddenly find out that someone’s clip had mysteriously vanished (and in that exact moment, you can’t remember if Jaelyn rides the bus on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, or Tuesday and Thursday…or maybe she goes to latchkey…or maybe you actually got an email saying that Wednesdays weren’t going to be bus days anymore!). Whewww. You teachers know exactly what I mean.

My stomach drops when I think I may be sending a kiddo in the wrong direction. Anyhow, this is what I ended up creating. It’s simple, really.

I simply print and laminate, then write each of my kinders’ names in the appropriate group (or groups, for those kiddos who have a very complicated routine).

I am seriously even thinking about printing out 5 of them- One for each day, since I have so many kids with so many confusing schedules. I use an extra fine dry erase marker and keep it where the kinders won’t bother it.

At the end of the year, I use an alcohol wipe or hand sanitizer to clean the marker off. Easy peasy lemon-scented-hand-sanitizer squeezy. Also, I simply copied this chart after filling out so that I had a couple of extras that my aide and I could carry with us at pick-up time in case there were any questions.

Favorite Back-to-School Timer Savers: Product #2: A Simple Lost Tooth Chart

The other is equally simple and wonderful. I’m really not trying to blow my own trumpet here…(I played the trumpet in middle school…and I hate the word toot, so this is what you get).

I just really love when ideas or products simplify my life and save time at school!

When kiddos lose a tooth throughout the year, I want to document it.

It’s exciting!! (Mostly to the kids…Let’s be honest here- The sound that a super wiggly tooth makes when wiggled back and forth makes me a bit queasy).

My previous method was a large blank graph with each of the months listed at the bottom.

I would print out a bunch of tiny teeth shapes and cut them out. When a kinder lost a tooth, I’d grab one, write their name, and tape it to the chart (And sometimes, I’d run out of the teeth shapes and then I’d have a kinder constantly asking me to make more shapes so that their name could be on the chart!).

Then at the end of the year, I would have to peel all of the tape and teeth off and make sure that no tape was left so that I could use the chart the next year.

My new method is very similar, with a little tweak…

I print a lost tooth chart out each year so that I can write with a pen (the teeth don’t offer a ton of space for writing with a marker). I LOVE this chart.

A tooth comes out, I whip out a pen and write their name.

Happy kinder.

Happy teacher.

Piece of cake.

That’s it for now. 🙂 I hope my ideas can help you to painlessly un-complicate your life as a teacher… several tiny steps at a time.

Happy simplifying!