Desk Fairy

Have you had a visit from the Desk Fairy yet this year?!  I have found that a quick visit from the Desk Fairy, who leaves a small treat, helps my students keep their desks and the classroom cleaner.

The Desk Fairy simply looks for clean desks and leaves a little note of encouragement and a treat.

If a student's desk is not up to par the Desk Fairy skips over it!

Students are quickly motivated to clean their desk in the hopes the Desk Fairy will stop by again!  I have made these cute Desk Fairy Coupons that you can print and use in your classroom and the best part is they're FREE!  You can find them HERE in my teacher store.

I hope the Desk Fairy stops by your classroom soon!

Class Newsletters Just Got Easier!

Let's talk class newsletters!

I will freely admit that at times I have not been good at sending home a class newsletter monthly or even weekly.  In fact I use to dread the time it would take to sit down and grind out a newsletter, all the time checking dates to make sure I had every activity school wide down for the entire month (because who wants to do this every week!), classroom goals, I can statements, birthdays, parent volunteers, field trips..... Whew!  I would get it set up the way I wanted, cute as a button, printed and put into my students binders and then.... Date changes! Rescheduled events! Cancelled field trips!

BUT WAIT!

I just sent everything home with my students!

Dang it!! I know I could just send a quick, impersonal email though our district system informing parents of the changes,  but I really dislike the impersonal look (read: "NOT CUTE"!) of our district email and I never really know if parents are getting my emails (unless they bounce back) and are actually reading them unless they talk to me personally about the topics in the email.  I know that with a paper copy it usually makes it out of homework binders and I at least know it made it home ~ somewhere.

One day, while cruising through Facebook I came across a sponsored ad for Erin Wing's Classroom Newsletters through MailChimp.com.    I was intrigued!  It was cute and it was an email with SO much more going on!  I could add links to our district parent portal to check grades and lunch accounts, I could link a direct email response, all the calendar dates could be easily added to any smart phone with just a touch!  I loved it!  

I don't know about you but anything that makes my life run smoother is a huge bonus and this new way of sending classroom newsletters has made them so easy and I don't dread them any more.  Now, I actually look forward to sending classroom newsletters weekly!

I love these emails (actually called campaigns) because not only are they cute, and I can provide direct links for parents to use (district home page, email, websites for homework, etc.), I can also see which parents are actually opening my emails (and I hope reading them) and if they have clicked the links.  I no longer am sending out a paper copy to any of my parents because the emails can be read on ALL smart phones, tablets, or any computer.

Here is the link to Erin Wing's website with a great YouTube video on how to set up an account with MailChimp and a link to her teacher store on Teachers Pay Teachers where you can buy her cute newsletters that are compatible with MailChimp.

http://www.erinwing.com/mailchimp-newsletters/

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Erin-Wing

I hope this can make your classroom newsletters a little less overwhelming and much easier to use! It has made such a difference in my communication with parents that I will be using it for years to come.

Starting a Blog...Oh My!!

So... I've wanted to start a Blog for a quite some time now but I worried it would be too complicated and do I really have something to say that others would want to read?!  After thinking about it FOREVER I decided to jump in (there's two ways to get into a pool right?! - one toe at a time or cannon ball).  So cannon ball it is and I hope the splash will be as big as the ball! Life is full of adventures and this is just the start of another one.....