Don't get caught on Pinterest.

Not that I have anything against Pinterest.  In fact, I love it.  I have a lot of school boards and about a-bazillion pins for every fun thing I find.  {You might want to follow me, I'm just saying.}  But you probably shouldn't be on Pinterest at school.

While your kids are in the room.

And your principal comes in for an observation.

Thaaaaat's right.  That was my afternoon.  But wait - let me explain!!!  You know how you pre-pre-prepare everything to be organized and productive?  Right, I did that.  I introduced Homework Notebooks to my students today but instead of passing them out one at a time, I put them in my kids' communication binders myself this morning.  All 19 of them.  The plan was for them to pull out their binders {like every day at dismissal} and they would flip to the back to see their Homework Notebooks, be thrilled that I had secretly already added them and we would move on without taking up too much time.

But did that happen?!  Nooooo.  Instead, my students pulled out their binders and every. single. homework. notebook. went. flying.

AT. THE. SAME. TIME.

There were notebooks all over the floor.  "Whose is this?!"  "Where's my journal?"  "I don't want this color!"  "I want that one!"  "That's mine!"  "You're stepping on it!!"  And then some.  In the words of Pete the Cat...did the teacher cry?  Goodness no!  I had it under control!!  I was a little frustrated but I sent them to their tables to work on our usual packing up procedure while I took a deep breath & tried to calm my frazzled nerves.  {Did I mention this was the end of a day where my kids don't go to specials?  ie. I had no break.}

So I went to the computer.  I knew if I googled Homework Notebook or Homework Journal or Homework Binder that something would pop up.  And it did!  The problem was...it took a few minutes {read: 90 seconds} to find.  And in that 90 seconds, what happened?  You got it.  Enter the principal.

Did the teacher cry?  Almost.  Goodness no!

I turned red & sputtered an explanation of what was going on.  Luckily she moved on and said she'd come back later, but still.  It happened.  And it was not fun.  Why am I telling you?  Because I don't want the same thing to happen to you.  Here are some links to some of the FREE journal covers that I use.  Download them now & be ready!

The dreaded Homework Notebook covers {lol} from First Grade Schoolhouse.

Our Science & Social studies Notebooks from Adventures in Teaching.

Our Poetry Notebook covers from Mrs. Woolwine. 

If you don't use binders you can just glue these to the front of a notebook.  I recommend doing this even if you don't think you need it.  Reference the story above and take my word for it!  ;)