Day 10... Hey! The Date is Magnetic!

If you have read even one of my previous posts, you know there are a few things (besides coffee) that I love:

• I love things that are easy to do 
• I love things that require a low CQ (Craft Quotient)
• I love straight lines that I can cut with my paper cutter
• I love things that will last the whole year (or longer)

The subject of today's back-to-school post meets all of those requirements!

Yesterday, I made a reference to these magnetic sheets. Avery makes a bijillion products that I love and this is one of my favorites. The packaging for this product used to look like the one on the left. The new packaging is shown on the right. You may see one or the other in stores and online. So far, it appears that the packaging has changed, but the product is exactly the same (which is good news for me!)

 

Every student in my room has a job. It's that whole "We are a family" concept that allows everyone to contribute to the common good. Okay, that sounds nice, and it is partly true. Here's the real truth: I am old. And I can't remember to do everything. So we have jobs to make sure everything gets done each day--without me having to do all of the tasks or even ask that they be done. Yep thirty-four(ish) jobs. And it works great.

For example, each week, someone is assigned the daily job of "Attendance." Our attendance is now done on the computer and so you no longer see a parade of kids going to the office to drop off the attendance sheets. I do miss that sight--especially the kindergartners holding hands. (Did you know that in the "old days," the big kids used to hide behind trees and copy phone numbers off of that list?! That's a fact!)

Currently, in my classroom, the "attendance person" is the only student who has the right--actually the obligation--to "pester" the teacher. He needs to remind, suggest, bother, cajole or humor me (whatever it takes) to submit the attendance. Then he can sign out for his job, breathe a sigh of relief and be done for the day... with his job, at least!

Oh. I am not posting about attendance today?  And I am not posting about the job list? Hmmmm. What was I talking about? Oh, yes! I was talking about magnets! (And my poor memory skills). And changing the date. Maybe I secretly wanted to write about attendance today?

As I was saying, I would never remember to change the date each day. So it is one of our classroom jobs to do so. I have learned that it can take students up to five minutes to write the date on the white board. They don't like the way their writing looks. They wrote the wrong date. They don't like the way they made the 4. Maybe today is the day they will start making triangle 4s instead of open squares 4s. Yes. Maybe no. Try again, Never mind. How about a different colored pen? {Insert silent scream}

So I now use Avery magnetic sheets to make the pieces they need to post the date. In less than ten seconds a student can change the date and there is no drama involved! Hey! I think I finally found the topic of this post!

This morning I printed and cut out everything I need for this task (in a mere eighteen minutes!) And I got to use my beloved (almost-an-antique) paper cutter so the lines are (reasonably) straight!

This is a picture of the front and the back of the magnetic sheets. As you can see, I run off the calendar pieces with a fairly thick border. This way, even if my cutting is a little inexact (perish the thought!), no one will ever know...

And here is a picture from a while back to show that we really do use this system in my classroom. Well, I should say my students use this system. They are completely in charge of this process because it is now clear that I would forget. But I use the system too... Because unless we start out the day with PE (which would make it Monday), I can rarely remember what day it is!

During the first three weeks of school, we are required to list on the board how many kids we have in our room (For years, this was listed in boy and girl columns. I never understood that. Did you have to do that?) (Ha! Some of you are so young that you remember BEING one of the numbers rather than writing them!)

OOoooohhhh. Now I AM posting about attendance! Teachers have to have those numbers visible on the board so that the administrator can peek in and record the number of students in the school on the official clipboard.

So when the new year starts, the date and my "report" will look like this on my board:

That's my use for Avery magnetic sheets. And my job system. And the way we take attendance. And the way we change the date. Goodness! My attention deficit certainly allowed me to cover a lot of ground this morning!

And, of course, my favorite part of all of this is the purple square!