Fun Classroom Additions for a New School Year

Alright, I firmly believe that to be a teacher that makes a difference, the “secret sauce” is all about the relationships you build with your students.  Your impact is built in the day to day moments, the exchanges, the conversations, the thinking, and the problem solving.

I say this because you don’t need any of these things to be great or engaging or exciting.  BUT, if you’re looking to level up your day to day classroom life, I love all of these following things!

Okay, let’s start off with THESE adorable puzzle erasers.  Even fifth graders (aka: big kids) love these and collect them and want to earn them.  You can do so many things with them (rewards for hard work, random acts of kindness, ect) but I use them as part of our student store.  They can use their class cash (read more about that HERE) to buy them when I do the student store, which happens on the last Friday of every month.

My students keep these in their pencil boxes and they get SO excited to see which ones are offered.

If you’re looking for a fun way to select a student of the day, I recommend the lucky ducks!  We use THESE tiny ducks and I write numbers on the bottom.

During morning meeting, we select a new Lucky Duck of the Day and that person gets to lead the rest of the meeting.  They also get to do little jobs throughout the day, such as dismissing for recess or at the end of the day.  We do one duck per day.

Looking to encourage your students that hard work and perseverance pays off?  How about some “magical” growth mindset spray?  I love THIS slow mist spray bottle, personalized with some vinyl from my Silhouette.

I add in water and if you’d like, you can do a couple drops of an essential oil.  As they’re working on something new (this is GREAT during tricky math concepts), I theatrically spray some over their heads as a reminder to maintain a growth mindset.

They.  Love.  It.

And speaking of making tricky concepts engaging, bring in some games!  You can turn a math worksheet or test review into a wildly fun game with cornhole and some beanbags.  I love buying the “yard size” games because they’re typically larger and get kids really excited.

I just split the class into teams and have them solve problems together.  I’ll call up one member per team and if the student has the correct answer, he/she gets a turn to play and score points.  Mine are old from Target but THIS is very similar!

If you want to randomly pick students, try writing their numbers on ping pong balls and tossing them in a bowl.

It’s so simple but they LOVE hearing if their number is called!

Alright, last one but also another huge hit: soft start materials.  We do soft starts once a week (you can read more HERE) but you could do them as often as you’d like.

I have collected materials over the years and they not only increase engagement, but they also encourage collaboration and cooperation between your students!

Our favorites: brain flakes, flower blocks, wooden Tetris puzzles, magnetic building sticks, and dominoes!