FREE classroom jobs chart!

Posting a classroom job chart is the perfect way to delegate responsibilities to your students. We just can't do it all!!  Plus, students love to help around the classroom.  Take some time at the beginning of the year to teach your students how to successfully complete some important classroom jobs and you will be thankful.  Nothing is better than the middle of the year when your students get so good at the classroom jobs that they are essentially running the classroom.  I just want to show up and teach I tell them!  The rest should be up to them!!!

Download this classroom jobs chart for FREE.  Just print, laminate, post, teach, sit back, and enjoy!!

First Day Welcome Letter Warm Up

Need a warm up for the first day of school?  Here's a quick little fill-in-the-blank letter you can have on your students' desks so they have something to do right when they walk in.

You can find this freebie at my TPT Store!

Fact Fluency Freebie

If you've been teaching 5th grade for a long time, you know how frustrating it can be to teach math when your students aren't fluent in their facts.   How can you teach kids to add fractions with different denominators if they don't know their basic multiples?  Suddenly, finding a common denominator is a very time consuming process.

Recently, I attended a math training where the presenter said that students shouldn't be memorizing facts.  I've heard that at a lot of trainings lately. Frankly, it scares me.  There is a misconception that the Common Core discourages memorization.  That isn't the case.  If people start to believe this misconception, math is going to be so much harder for upper grade teachers to teach.

I recently updated a FREE Common Core Math Fluency Posters set.  These posters can be useful in having discussion with kids, parents and other teachers about grade level expectations.  These fact fluencies can be the basis of intervention.  If you start your year determining which students haven't met goals for previous years, you can catch them up before they fall even further behind.

Here are a couple of the FREE posters included in the packet:

Stop by my blog by clicking on the picture below to read about why Memorize is NOT a Bad Word and for some links to resources that you may find helpful.

from

Back-to-Schhol E-Book: 40 FREE Ideas and Resources

Back-to-School season is upon us!

To help you get started or add to your planned classroom resources, 40 different TpT sellers have created a “A Back to School eBook for Grades 5 and 6 from TpT Authors.” Each page is packed with tips to help you as you adjust to back to school in your classrooms. 

Click here for your FREE download:

Fifth Grade Freebies shout-outs

Several of the collaborators from "Fifth Grade Freebies" contributed to this e-book

Brian from Wise Guys compiled all of these awesome pages!

They also shared a free guided reading strategies packet.

Jessica from Joy in the Journey has a missing homework management freebie that will help keep your students accountable for their missing work.

Missy from "Wild About Fifth" has a Reading Challenge freebie that will get your students excited about reading and exploring different genres!

If you download the freebies, please leave feedback!

Head Back to School with some Freebies!

Hey y’all! It’s Kristen from Chalk & Apples, here with my very first post on Fifth Grade Freebies. I’m so excited to be joining this group of 5th grade teachers to share some great free resources with you!

Today, I wanted to share a couple of freebies that get me through the Back to School season.


You’d think on my 8th year of teaching, with 7 in 5th grade, it would be easy to get ready for the beginning of another school year. You’d think I would have the routine down, and would just be able to hop right into Back to School mode the week before school starts. But I can’t. Every year, when it’s time to get back to it, I’m so far in summer mode that I need some reminders of what it is that I’m supposed to be doing in preparation for a new year.

That’s why I created this set of free Back to School Checklists! It took way longer than I’d like to admit to figure out what I actually needed to include in my checklists, but now that they’re done, I can just reprint them every year, and be sure I’m doing everything I need to get ready. You can click the image to download it free from my TPT store!


On the first day of school, or at open house the day before school starts, there are always lots of forms to be filled out. Personally, I want parents to take these forms home and do a thorough job of completing them… but there is some information I really need on that VERY FIRST day. I really just want to have one good contact number in case of emergency, to know if there are any major allergies or medical concerns, and I want to know how each child is getting home that day.

I created this free First Day Form, which I print 2 to a page on bright colored paper. This is the one and only thing I ask parents to complete at “Meet the Teacher” night or on the morning of the first day of school. I find that this is quick and easy for parents to fill out, and it gives me just enough info to get through until they return the entire back to school packet. Click the image to grab it as a freebie in my TPT store!

FREE Back-to-School Graphic Organizer: A Good Classmate

The first week of school is crucial for setting the tone in your classroom. I always spend considerable time setting my expectations for not only the quality of their schoolwork and the effort I need to see, but also their behavior. 

I am looking for role models and they know it!
For kids (especially the youngsters) sometimes the word role model can be a little ambiguous. Each year I take the time to discuss what a role model is. 

I'm not looking for 2-dimensional stock characters; I want living, breathing, good-decision-making classmates. But that doesn't always happen naturally. Sometimes students need to be taught.

This FREE graphic organizer is meant to spur discussion of what makes a good classmate. Take time to brainstorm as a class (or have your students work together in groups) to fill out the graphic organizer. It can be displayed in the classroom and/or referred to periodically throughout the year.

I saw this idea on Pinterest and knew that I wanted
to try it with my students:

As a class we brainstormed what it looked like to be a good classmate. We filled out this anchor chart and the students filled in one at their seats as a reminder to keep in their binders. We also had a great discussion about how these qualities don't only apply to being a good student - they make us good friends, good sons/daughters, good siblings, etc.

I have created this *FREE* template if you would like to use one of them with your students/children:

For those using this at home, I've included some additional templates for you to use:

          

If you download this product, please leave feedback!

Also, if you use this product with your class, please take some pictures and e-mail me at joyinthejourneyteaching@yahoo.com - I'd love to feature you on my blog! :) 

What are your best activities for setting the tone in your classroom? Share them in the comments below - we'd love to hear them! :)