Morning Work and Number of the Day

       Over the past couple of years I have struggled with how to incorporate morning work into my classroom.  I teach a heterogeneous, inclusion classroom.  In the morning depending on the year I have had anywhere 11 (which only lasted one week before I was transferred to my current school) to 18 students.  This upcoming year I will have 21 students in my class (as of now--that number may change).  My school district is also a very transient area, our kids often move to several schools throughout the year and I receive several students each year.  This past year I had 1 students transfer in about a month into school and a month later she transferred out.  I had another student transfer in about a month and a half into school, 1 transfer in the beginning of Feb, and 2 transfer in during the same week in March or April (this year is a blur)!  My morning work has to be simple enough to be easy to get a grasp of quickly so that my new students can pick up on it quickly.  We also do a lot of switching in my school (yes--in 2nd grade).  We have an accelerated math class and an accelerated reading class.  This means that I have kids coming and going all day long.  This has made it difficult to do journal writing, dlr, or other language arts or even math practice in the mornings, at least practice that I would need my whole math or reading class to participate in.

       Oh, and did I mention that I always have several kids who bring their breakfast to class in the mornings, so that takes out more kids that are not completing morning work.  So for the past couple of years my morning work has consisted of reading from their book bins (if they weren't in my reading class and didn't have a book bin they would just take out a library book or get a book from our class library).  AR is also always open in the mornings.  My famous phrase in the mornings was "you are eating or reading" because they would always ask to do something else.

     So I have had this dilemma, but Pinterest helped to solve that problem.  I saw lots of posts about morning work and so I decided to start a project--morning work/number of the day folders.  I saw this idea in a binder but I didn't want another binder for each child that takes up even more space on my scarce bookshelves.  So I made Morning work/Number of the day folders.  I made and printed activities that students will complete each morning and then placed those sheets into a page protector.  I then took those two page protectors and put them into a plastic folder that has metal prongs inside of it.  Students will use dry erase markers to complete these activities each morning with our number of the day that I will have up on the board in the front of the classroom.  This will allow students to work at their own pace and if they are eating breakfast, it is okay if they do not get to it.  It will keep students engaged who are not eating their breakfast but the students who are eating breakfast will still get the benefit of reviewing the number of the day each day.

        Here is a picture and a link to my TPT store where you can grab your copy of the Morning Work and Number of the day printables--there are more challenging sheets besides the ones in the picture below.  I am going to put some manipulatives and a dry erase marker into the pockets of the folders so students will be able to write and complete the activities.  I will put base ten blocks and counters into the folder.  I also am going to buy cheap wash cloths and cut them into fourths and that will serve as student's erasers (another brilliant idea I saw on pinterest :) !!  Please leave feedback on the morning work/number of the day printables if you use them :) 

Click on the picture to go to Kristy's Crazy Classroom on TPT!