Next year, I am DEFINITELY going to.... Linky

One of my favorite bloggers is hosting her first linky party. I love everything about Finding Joy in 6th grade. She is a great blogger and her ideas and products are top notch!

I love this linky idea because I feel we have all started planning for "next year" already. I still have 7 days for this year, but things that worked are being planned out and things that didn't work are being changed already! 

I just saw this from Holly over at  Fourth Grade Flipper and I love it. I love how it will organize my homework. Isn't it awesome? 

I did this all year and it was wonderful!!! It isn't broke, no need to fix it! This idea came from Leslie at Jack of All Trades. I tweaked it a little, but not much. Her system is great. 

I love Interactive Notebooks. I used them everyday. Composition notebooks are great, but they are too small and when we made pockets, they weren't deep enough. So, I am going to try something different. 

My students need more math practice for every skill. I want to incorporate more time for stations on a weekly or bi weekly time line. I am not sure how I am going to incorporate them exactly, but I know they need it more than I did this year, I have already started getting my task cards ready. Some I have bought, printed and laminated. Some I still need to print and laminate and then there are some I am making on my own. This is one of those thing I tried, kind of liked, but need to get a better way for it to work in my classroom. 

I am not sure how this is going to look, but the biggest complaint I get from my parents is that they cannot help their students because they don't remember "sixth grade math". I am in the process of creating a "Parents Guide to 6th Grade Math". It's going to be a packet or something that I can pass out to parents to help them with the strategies we teach our students.

Our sixth graders have some serious transition issues to middle school, so we are trying to be proactive next year. For starters we are having a 6th grade back to school Saturday for parents and students. Instead of meeting their teachers for five minutes at a time at the traditional "Meet the teacher", we are planning a a four hour information meeting. We plan to help our students AND their parents make the transition to middle school easier. My other biggest complaint from parents is that they don't know what is going on. Parents are trying to give them more "freedom", but I can't stress enough how they have to know what is going on and their child is not going to tell them. They have to check agendas, websites, etc....

As I read through blogs this seems to be a huge topic for all of us as teachers. I do okay, but then fall short. I did some things this year that helped. I just need to keep adding to it. I was one of the few that didn't get that teacher supply organizer made. From reading how most people love theirs this year, I plan on making one this summer. Something similar to this.

Thanks to blogging, I have made some improvements this year.
I started some notebooks, but station materials are bulky and don't fit in folders. So, I started using tubs to help organize them I just need to continue this.

It doesn't look like this now! 

This isn't my classroom, but that is what it looks like, just not as neat.

I did create a crate to file everything for my students by class, papers by day, papers to copy, etc.
Very similar to this. 

I also have a file for my units from this year and now at least I know where to find things when I start planning.

And lastly,

By nature though, I may not be able to follow through with this one. 

How about you? Have you started planning for next year yet?