Filing Made Easy

If you're anything like me, filing cabinets are used as nothing more than a place to hide all of the junk you want out of sight. I had a filing cabinet in my classroom for one year and one year only because it ended up turning into nothing more than wasted space. (Same reason I don't have a teacher desk... Just another unneeded junk collecting space eater.) I'd try to stay on top of keeping my resources filed, but I always fell behind and ended up with piles of papers around my classroom that ended up either being thrown randomly into a drawer of the filing cabinet or straight into the trash can.

Last year, I had no filing system at all. Because a good alternative to having a bad filing system is to not have one at all, right? ;) (Good thing I only taught 3rd grade one year, because only about 5% of the resources I used made it out of that classroom without suffering death by recycling bin.) Luckily, one of my fabulous coworkers shared her filing system with me and it has absolutely saved my sanity! 

It's seriously the most simplistic filing system ever. I have a folder for every week of the school year.

I keep each week's folder sitting on my back counter so I can easily throw in a copy of anything and everything we do that week.

I keep a copy of that week's plans in the folder as well as a master copy of everything I used throughout that week. That way, next year I will have everything I need to make copies of for that week in one place. 

I also try to keep any samples I have modeled with, as well as student work samples, so I don't forget the "end result" of any projects/ craftivities. 

I also throw in any extra supplies I have left over to save prep time for the following year.

Lastly, I baggy up any task cards I used and keep them in the folder so I can easily find them next year.

Obviously I will continue to add new ideas to my lessons each year, but this gives me a good starting point. It also makes it easy to remember what I've used in the past and helps me keep track of resources I choose to reuse. 

I haven't done a great job of organizing the resources within the folders as far as content areas go, BUT at least everything is in one nice, neat place and not in a dumpster somewhere, right?! ;)

Media Literacy Unit

I really wasn't sure how this unit was going to go at first, but it ended up being a ton of fun!

I introduced the concept of media literacy by showing the class multiple pictures of cereal boxes. (Next year, I will probably collect actual empty cereal boxes for the kiddos to look at.) As we looked at each cereal box, the students discussed who they thought would buy each cereal and why. 

 

We spent the rest of the week talking about what media literacy is, the variety of media sources (tv, commercials, radio, newspapers, books, billboards, etc.), and the different purposes of media (to persuade, to entertain, and to inform). I used a few resources from First Grade Wow's Media Literacy Mini Unit. 

Now for the exciting part! After introducing the kiddos to media literacy on Monday, they were assigned a homework project that required them to design a children's cereal box of their own. Additionally, they had the option of creating a commercial for their cereal as extra credit. How their boxes and commercials turned out is what made me love this unit so much. They put so much thought and effort into this project and the results were AWESOME!

I played this Buy Me That! video for the kids to help give them ideas. 

Here is the letter I sent home to parents: 

(Click on the image to download an editable version of this parent letter for free.)

Here are some of the awesome boxes students brought in! 

   

   

   

   

  

A lot of kiddos submitted adorable commercials as well! Here are a few that I got permission to post: 

 

All of the kiddos had to give a ~30 second "live commercial" (presentation) of their cereal to the class. 

After presenting, I displayed their cereal boxes on two large tables. We priced all of the cereal boxes at $5. We have three 2nd grade classes, so each student was given 3 fake five dollar bills. Their job was to look at all of the cereal boxes and "purchase" their favorite one from each class. 

After students made their way around all three classrooms, the teachers (secretly) counted each student's total profit. The student with the most sells from each class had to give their presentation again in front of all three classes. Then the students "bought" their top choice out of the three. The winner was awarded with applause and a mini cereal snack. 

After learning all about media literacy, I put students in to "creative teams" and gave them a week to come up with a toy invention, create an ad for their toy, and write a script for their toy to present to the class. To help get their gears turning, I played this video of the Top 10 Best Toy Commercials. 

The ideas they came up with blew me away! They were are all so creative!

Planning:

 

Creating final copies of advertisements: 

Presenting advertisements: 

Unfortunately I can't post the videos I took of the groups presenting their scripts, but I will post the scripts themselves! I set with each group one-on-one to guide them as we created their scripts, but the bulk of the ideas came from the students! 

I didn't think to take close up pictures of each of the groups ads, but I will do that on Monday and add them to the post because they are A-DOR-A-BLE! 

What a fun unit!! I would love to hear what fun activities you do during your media literacy unit!