I was chomping at the bit to get back into the classroom after summer "break," as my hallway was one of the last classrooms to be cleaned. I knew that I couldn't just sit in the room and work without moving furniture or adding bulletin board paper.
But the day came, and here are the before photos:
My first goal was just to get paper on the walls, and then I could fill in the details later. I also set out to start one project, and then finish it; start a second project, and then finish that one.... well..... apparently I've got "classroom ADD" so of course, that plan went out the window and within a few hours, I had 12 projects going on in various areas in the classroom. Don't judge - you've all been there with me ;) I feel for my new co-teacher, who is very streamlined and got overwhelmed by my "projects" every time she walked in my room. Bless her heart ;)
Well.... you saw the before... now here are the afters:
The photo to the right is a fun little bulletin board for my outside hallway. I've been telling people that I give credit to Pinterest for the idea, but take credit for the execution.
Honestly, I have to give crazy amounts of credit to Pinterest. I had been bored by things in my classroom for a while, and this summer I discovered so many amazing teachers with so many amazing ideas!
This is my Word Nerd wall, courtesy of Jennifer Maschari on TPT. I've already had a few kids working on adding words to the board; they seem to be really exited about it!
My absent folder wall: I was FED UP with trying to keep track of my 75 students and if, when, and for how long they were absent. I don't know about you, but that is just crazy hard to keep up with! I was at a tech conference and saw a teacher's classroom there and she had something similar. My students are trained to write the absent student's name on any papers they receive and to put it in the appropriate folder. It's been a fantastic system that has really put responsibility into the hands of the students (and that is my ultimate goal!!!!)
A few years ago, I started asking my students to be responsible for knowing their own specials/unified arts schedule each day. One year, my students were rainbowed (split up amongst the other classes for specials) and there was absolutely no way for me to know which students were going to which specials each day. It started a trend with me, so I post the monthly calendar with each specials day written on it, as well as other various announcements.
And the kids know now, too... don't ask me the date; check the calendar!! :D
Okay. I am, by far, incredibly excited about this part of my classroom. I teach with the CAFE framework for Reading, and in the past, I had everyone crammed up near my Smart Board, all squished together in a teeny space. I mounted my dry erase board and a bulletin board that someone was throwing away (REALLY?) to the wall, made a double-sized teacher bench (with storage inside for my teaching texts, sticky notes, and markers), and put down a large rug that my co-teacher had just taken out of her dining room (love love love free stuff!).
The rug isn't my style and doesn't really fit my classroom, but again, it was FREEEE! The rule for our carpet time is that every child has to be sitting on or be able to to touch the carpet. This ensures that my usual suspects don't hang out in the back, unengaged.... I'm so sneaky.
As a shameless plug, if you like the cute little bird CAFE headers, head on over to my TPT store and check them out :)
Pinterest also gave me the great idea to use a dishrack to hold file folders, so my kiddos can get copies of these amazing journal pages from there to put directly into their binders. There are a few notebooks for kids to write in as a group journal. This is new for me, but I'm excited to see how it works!
My prized project from this summer is my crate chairs! I watched a tutorial from Miss Kranz and kind of made them work for the size of my fifth graders. They have been great to store books that my kiddos will read with their Book Buddies throughout the school year.
Mrs. Ranz has a college corner in her classroom, and over the past year, I've started collecting pennants from various colleges. My sisters go to two of the schools up there and I went to Marshall, so almost everyone in the family is represented (I'm still holding out on my brother to get me his!).
As most schools, we are required to post Learning Targets for each lesson that we are teaching. I have enjoyed working through these targets with my students, and helping students to see how the targets fit into the essential questions for Langauge Arts. I typed up and laminated the targets to post each day (even though we're switching to the Common Core next year and it will ALLLLLL change!).
Thanks for stopping by! I hope to post a bit about my first week soon!
