One Thing I'm Excited to Use This Year!

I really wanted to be able to blog about my whole classroom and to show pictures or maybe even a video.  After working at school (working and chatting and trying to choose matching teacher t-shirts and staring at the wall) from 9:30 to 4:00, my room still isn't done. Not video ready, not even photograph ready really.  As I was desperately trying to take pictures at an angle that would hide the mess that still looms in my room, I had an "aha!" moment.  I would love to share one thing in particular that I am really excited to try this year.

Have you all heard of Wall Pops?? I had never seen these things! They look like this:

Fancy, right? Not at first glance, I know! But the possibilities with these things are endless!  They are actually adhesive vinyl circles that are DRY ERASE! Yes, dry erase! They can be stuck to almost any surface and the adhesive is removable and they can be repositioned! Ok, so how am I going to use these magical circles in my classroom?  Check this out:

Above is my small group table.  I stuck on a circle for each student.  I'm going to use the "Pops" to have my third graders write notes, vocabulary words, questions they have about the text, connections, etc. This will be easier than having the kids hold or try to manage separate personal white boards.  I thought these would be great for other subjects as well and I plan to use these for diagrams, word problems, and equations.

This picture is of my writing station.  The students can use the Wall Pops here to list words, check their spelling, write title ideas, brainstorm, make outlines, and more.  I know you're probably thinking, "Doesn't she know that you can dry erase on tables?".  Yes, I do know that BUT this is so much cuter AND it gives the students defined space for their work.  

Love these as much as I do? You can check them out here: Amazon.com. Of course, there are a few different colors to choose from too!

I'll be sure to take more photos of students using the Wall Pops and I will update with an other post about how well they are working out for my classroom!  Thanks for reading and good luck with your own classroom set up!

-Caitlin