Organization Systems for Back to School!

In this blog post, I’m sharing my organization systems for starting out the school year teaching middle school science! These are the systems that I have found work best for my teaching practice and I hope that you can use one or all of them to help you feel more in-control and organized for Back-to-School!

Set the Daily Tone with Bellwork Boards

Bellwork, Do Nows, Bellringers…. whatever you call this beginning-of-class procedure, you need it!

Here is the Bellwork Board system that works for me:

I keep ONE Google Slides file for the school year. I like to choose a slide template for each unit or month and I simply COPY and PASTE a slide for each new day WITHIN the SAME Google Slides file, which is stored on my Google Drive.

Each afternoon at the end of the school day, I create a new slide for the following day. I type out the following day’s homework, agenda, and Bellwork task. The Bellwork task may be to answer a question posed on Google Classroom, to begin Part 1 of the day’s lesson, or simply to clear desks in preparation for a lab. I usually also add in a relevant GIF from giphy.com to animate the slide and grab my students’ attention.

This whole process makes me feel in control at the beginning of each day and each class! I designed 20 Bellwork Board templates in Google Slides featuring beautiful images of nature! CLICK HERE to view this resource!

 

Bellwork Topic in Google Classroom!

This procedure has changed my class! I give a “Bellwork” question each day ON Google Classroom. I create a “Bellwork” topic under the Classwork tab and each day I create a Question (from the Create > dropdown menu).

The questions review yesterday’s lesson or give an intro for today’s lesson. I title the Question with the date and a relevant emoji from https://getemoji.com/ (for example, let’s say the question is about the Big Bang — I would name the Bellwork “Tuesday May 23rd 💥”).

Students know to answer the question every day at the beginning of class and we go over the answers most of the time.

The emojis that I use to title each Bellwork help me visually with grading . . . because after about 3 weeks have passed, I go back through the students’ answers and take off 10 points (out of 100) for any missing Bellwork questions — they are supposed to correct their incorrect answers too so these serve as good review.

This also helps me to have another grade that I actually count as a Quiz. There are usually 2 or 3 Bellwork quizzes for a marking period.

 

Keep Organized with a Weekly Snapshot 📸

I started this system four years ago and it was a game-changer for my planning and for keeping organized when I started teaching two different grade levels. I call this The Weekly Snapshot — it’s basically a simple, running weekly calendar that lists the activities that we do in class each day. The newest weekly calendar is at the top and you can scroll ‘back in time’ to previous weeks.

The Weekly Snapshot is a Google Doc that lives as a link at the top of my Google Classroom Classwork tab. I use The Weekly Snapshot for multiple purposes:

First, it’s awesome for keeping parents in the loop. I tell them about this on Back to School Night so they know that they can open this Doc to get a sense of what we’re doing in class each week.

Secondly, it’s helpful for when students are absent from school or when they have a band lesson or an orthodontist appointment. Instead of, “What did I miss?”, they can check The Weekly Snapshot and ask me, “It looks like I missed the Convection Currents Lab. Can I make that up during study hall this week?”.

Thirdly, this template helps me to plan. I actually Make a Copy of the template and create a DRAFT Weekly Snapshot in my Google Drive. On this draft, I copy and paste a calendar for each week of a quarter. I add in all of the holidays, early dismissal days, testing days, etc. Then, I map out a basic outline of the topics/lessons that I hope to teach and the activities that I hope to include. I can see when assessments will fit in, when it might be a good time to potentially watch a relevant video, and when I will need to have my grading done for interims and the end of the quarter. This also makes it so easy to copy and paste and tweak each week onto the live version every Monday morning.

Since this Doc live updates, I can make changes throughout the week and my students will always be seeing the updated version! Click on this link if you’d like a free template of my Weekly Snapshot!

Get Your Google Classroom Ready

Have you been along for the ride as Google Classroom has improved tremendously over the years?! It’s hard to believe but I used to hate using it. Now I cannot imagine teaching without it! This is how I get my Google Classroom set up for the school year . . .

One of my colleagues sets up just one Google Classroom for ALL of her science classes. I cannot operate this way! Instead, I set up one Google Classroom for EACH class period. So, Period 1, Period 3, Period 4, Period 7, etc. Keeping with the nature theme from my Bellwork Boards, I designed these Google Classroom Headers with science quotes to make each Classroom look beautiful! I choose a different image for each class and upload them into the headers.

To add a custom header to your Google Classroom, select Upload Photo at the bottom right corner of the header. Choose Select a Photo from Your Computer and click on your header image. Then, drag the white rectangles to all four edges of the image.

Now every teacher seems to have a slightly different system for organizing Google Classroom. Here is what I do under the Settings (gear icon) to set up my Google Classroom the way that works best for me:

1. Disable Assignments from posting to the Stream by toggling OFF “Hide Notifications” next to Classwork on the Stream. I teach my students to ALWAYS go to the Classwork Tab to find our lessons and activities. The only posts on the Stream Tab are Announcements that I make; this keeps things really clean and consistent.
2. I allow students to comment on the Stream but NOT to post, so I choose “Students Can Only Comment” from the Stream dropdown menu.
3. Enable Guardian Summaries by toggling ON. Once parents add themselves as guardians on their child’s Google Classroom, they can begin receiving Guardian Summaries, which are sent weekly and include Missing Work, Upcoming Work, and Class Activities (Annoucements, Assignments, and Questions Posed by Teachers). This is a great tool for keeping parents in the loop with student work load.
4. I set up Topics under my Classwork tab for each unit of study through the year. I also like to add emojis for each topic. Read more about using emojis on your Google Classroom in this post!

Prep Your Monthly Classroom Newsletter

Speaking of keeping parents in the loop, I started sending a monthly newsletter to my students’ parents last year and the payoff was SO GREAT. Every month, I would receive back at least a dozen emails from parents saying, “This is awesome! I’m so happy to see what you’re doing in class!”, “Sarah has been so excited about your class and we love the Dinner Table Conversation Starters!”, or “We love knowing what’s going on and what’s coming up! Thanks for sharing!”.

These little notes are like teacher fuel! And the even bigger payoff is that parents feel like they know you and your class. When parents feel like they know you and your class, they are MUCH more likely to trust your judgement with discipline and grading and to support their child at home as they progress through your class! (Read between the lines – fewer nasty emails, easier quickie phone calls home, a strong ‘parent-teacher coalition’, etc.)

My favorite part (and parents’ favorite part) of the newsletter is the Dinner Table Conversation Starters. These are open-ended questions about the content from class that parents could ask their child. These questions hopefully get students chatting to their parents about science class!

If you need a starting point for your class newsletter, CHECK OUT THESE simple and fun nature-themed newsletter templates!

 

I hope that if you use any or all of these organization systems ideas, that they help you to feel organized and in-control at the beginning of the school year!