Table Tents and Life Cycles? Classroom management meets science!

So... I've been trying to fine-tune my Responsive Classroom techniques for the upcoming school year.   At the same time, I'm starting to move towards flexible seating (more on that later!)

 While rereading (one of my favorites) The First Six Weeks of School, I saw a suggestion about using table tents for table groups.  This got me thinking about how to maintain flexible groups and/or allow for flexible seating and student choice.  I decided to whip up some simple table tents.

Then an idea hit me!  What if I incorporate a variety of species for our upcoming study on life cycles??  That got me excited!  Here is what I ended up with:

 Table Tents



I made 7 different tents.  Each one illustrates a different type of species: mammal, insect, bird, amphibian, marsupial, fish, and flowering plant.

We will use these initially as just regular 'ol table tents.  Then once our Life Cycle unit begins, I will have groups do some inquiry work around their table specie!

I decided to add some other matching items: name plates, numbered labels (for our community supply bins), informational cards, and specie cards.  

You can purchase the whole package in my TPT store!  


I have printed mine all out and glued the table tents to poster board.  I'll be laminating this week!  I plan on making matching name plates in each color for my students.  I MIGHT laminate them and use a vis-a-vis on them.. so I can reuse them next year!  I'll post some pictures when my project is up and running.  

Getting excited for a great school year!!! :)