Classroom Setup Ideas

I'm trying to settle on what I want to do for my classroom setup at the beginning of the year next year. That way I can possibly get it all put together before I have my sweet baby girl on July 2.

First, here is my calendar/information area that I've had in the past. I like it so I don't think I'll change it much. Our mascot is a bulldog so the paw print calendar really works. Our colors are red, black and white.

Beginning of 2012-2013 school year

I use this board to put up the menu, student calendar, weekly spelling words and any other important notes. I've had the same set up for three years now but I like it so I think I'll keep it. The little box on the left is what I use to collect box tops. The three drawer container is where I collect work. However, it was moved to my book shelf. For attendance, I put the students names on bones cut out of foam sheets and the first year I used them I put magnets on the back and put them on the board. Last year I forgot to buy magnet tape so I just  laid them on these desks. The students find their bone and put it in either the cafeteria or lunch from home basket.  

I might add this to the side of my board. I like the idea of putting the days work in the folders. I would clean them out every Monday after school I think. I got this idea from The Cutest Little House in Town. I also have a 5-pocket folder chart that I might use instead. One pocket would hold make-up work packets for those that have been absent. Another pocket would hold extra copies. Not sure what the other pockets would hold yet.

The Cutest Little House in Town

I also like the looks of this calendar area from Teaching My Friends! I especially like the quote, "Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard". I might have to add that to my classroom somewhere. This also makes me want to add a plant or some type of decoration to my calendar area.

Teaching My Friends!

I think that is about all I can pack into my calendar area. I'll try to remember to take a picture of the final product.

This is taking more time than I thought so I'll only go into one more area and save more for tomorrow. I'll go with my "Welcome" decorations. My second year I had this. 

Kinda plain. Kinda boring.

Last year I think I did a little better and had this...

 

It was a Dr. Seuss theme with Dr. Seuss trim around the windows. I decided not to put it around the door like I had done previously because the door kept rubbing the trim and making a hideous noise and it also tore it up eventually. 

But I want to do even better than that this year. Initially I wanted to go with a Peanuts theme. I love Charlie Brown and Snoopy. However, after looking at classroom decor, I might go with something that is a little less theme-y. So I think I've narrowed it down to either this...

...with other Peanuts cut-outs or decor. Or something more general like one of these.

  

They also have some coordinating decorations and I could just use the same colors throughout my classroom.

But I've got to have more than just a poster and a few cut-outs if I want to make my welcome more inviting. I liked this idea that I found over at Apartment Therapy. Now I wouldn't use an owl but I like the idea of stacking my last name, painting it a coordinating color to go with whatever theme I choose and putting it in front of my classroom.

I need to do some more thinking and searching so I can decide what I really want to do. I'll probably go look around some more on Pinterest!

Well, that's it for now. I'll work on other areas tomorrow. If you have any ideas or opinions please share them!

Summertime Again!

I cannot believe I did not blog a single thing all school year! I am not doing a very good job at blogging. I'm not doing much better on my personal blog either. What is it going to take?? I guess part of it is I just don't think I have much to say. Especially on this blog. I use a lot of things I find on the internet in my classroom and since it is somebody else's idea, how can I blog about that? I'm hoping as I continue on in my teaching career, I will find my creativity and start coming up with my own ideas.

So, it's summer again and again, like last summer, I'm overwhelmed with all the information out there. I'm pretty sure I will be going from teaching just language arts to teaching all subjects in a self-contained classroom. That is my hope! Unfortunately, I don't know yet! So I'm still digging into all the ELA resources out there (well pinning a lot of ideas to Pinterest anyway) while occasionally looking at math, science and social studies ideas. I'm also trying to get more familiar with Common Core. I did buy one book off of Amazon. It wasn't focused on Common Core but it will help. This is the book I bought. I will try to remember to leave a review after I read it.




I would love to map out my whole year this summer but I don't know if I have the time, patience or stamina for that. I would also LOVE to be super organized by the time the school year rolls around. I want to have all kinds of systems in place so my classroom runs like a well-oiled machine. If only I could wave a magic wand and all the neat ideas I see on Pinterest could appear all set up in my classroom!

My biggest goal for this summer though, would have to be delivering a healthy baby in just a couple of weeks! Having a newborn at home will present challenges to getting all the professional stuff done, but I'm hoping that if I just carve out a little bit of time each day, I can get things ready for next year while putting my main focus on my new little girl and of course the rest of my family.

Schedules and Decorations

Our schedule was changed again but hopefully this will be the last time. There are four language arts teachers in my school. As a 5th grade group, we are going to implement CAFE and Daily 5 in some fashion. I can't imitate it exactly because I don't have the same amount of time and my students are a little older than the students that Daily 5 is geared towards. I thought I would share how I'm going to allocate my time. I teach two sections and each section receives approximately 90 minutes for reading. I put this schedule together today. The black font is my first class and the red font is the second class.

My Schedule

2o12-2o13

Bellwork	7:45-8:05
Whole Group Reading	8:05-8:35
Small Group 1/Weekly 10	8:35-9:00
Small Group 2/Weekly 10	9:00-9:25
Writing	9:25-10:25
Switch Classes	10:25-10:30
Bellwork	10:30-10:50
Specials/Plan	10:50-11:35
Whole Group Reading	11:35-12:05
Lunch/Recess	12:05-12:50
Small Group/ Weekly 10	12:50-1:15
	1:15-2:15
Small Group 2	2:15-2:45
Clean Up/Dismissal	2:45-2:50

I explain in an earlier post how I adapted the Daily 5 and created the Weekly 10. While I'm working with a small group, the other students will be working on their Weekly 10.

I'm almost finished setting up my classroom for the new year. All I have left to do is decorate one bulletin board and put my library books in baskets and label them by genre. I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do for my bulletin board. I want it to focus on reading. I have a few ideas but not convinced what to do yet. Here are some pictures of my classroom. This is just for the start of the year. As we move into reading and writing strategies, I will display more content oriented items on my walls. For now, I just put up decorations so that the information I eventually put up will hopefully not just become wallpaper.

Bulletin board in my classroom. It has questions on it that we will be studying this year.

These are the books that I need to put in baskets. I will also have my small group table back here when it comes in.

I need to invest in some more indoor recess items, don't I? It's slim pickings!

Forgetful Moments, Libraries and Flying Burritos!

I haven't written a post in a while so I sat down a few hours ago with an idea to blog about but I got interrupted and now I can't remember what it was! I should have seized that moment but didn't and now that moment is gone. I'm sure it was life altering news too! :P Even though I can't remember what I wanted to say, I still want to write so I'll just talk and see where my thoughts take me.

First, I have to say that I have only THREE weeks of summer left! I cannot believe that! I'm not dreading the start of school. I just don't have everything ready! I have been working up in my room 3-4 days a week for at least 3 hours a day...usually more. I have so much I want to do!

One area I'm working on is my library. I've been trying to reorganize and liven it up. I decided to use the library app from booksource that I mentioned in a previous post. I really like it. It will keep my library organized and the checkout system is more efficient than what I have now. If you already have a library system that works for you, then this may not be a benefit to you. But if you need a system overhaul or one put in place, then you might give this a try. I'm not completely finished with my library area but here is a picture of what I've done so far.

You might notice that there aren't any library books on the shelf. That is because they are on the floor as I am in the process of organizing them by genre. But I at least got the decor on the wall. I'm thinking of printing off a few quotes from different books and posting those on the wall as well along with the copy of the cover of the book they came from. One quote I have in mind is from To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee.

" You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view- until you climb into his skin and walk around in it." -Atticus Finch

Another quote comes from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:

 

"So please, oh PLEASE, we beg, we pray, Go throw your TV set away, And in its place you can install, A lovely bookshelf on the wall."

And maybe a random, silly one like this one from Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief: 

“Ever had a flying burrito hit you? Well, it’s a deadly projectile, right up there with cannonballs and grenades.”

Voices and the Daily 5

I wish I could turn the voice off in my head. The teaching voice that is! Now don't get me wrong, I absolutely LOVE being a teacher. However, this summer, I have not been able to turn the frantic voice that is worrying about school, off in my head. I would love to silence it from time to time so I can simply enjoy time with my family or just to relax without being anxious about plans for next year. Instead, if I'm not scouring the internet or reading a professional development book, I worry that I am frittering my time away and I won't get it all done! Is anybody else this obsessed during the summer? Or is it just me?

Part of my issue is that we are starting a new reading format next year. I want to figure out the ins of outs of how I want to run this program. I've decided to incorporate The Daily 5 and the CAFE system into our reading routine. Those are new to me as well. And I'm not able to simply borrow it exactly how they describe it in the books because it is geared more towards the primary grades. So I am going to have to adapt the program to fit my classroom. I have a few adaptations running through my head.

My reading block is only an hour and a half. That poses a problem. Ideally I'm supposed to spend at least TWO and a half hours on my literacy block. Well, it is just not possible. I wish it was. So I'm leaning towards doing two independent work blocks a day instead of 4-5. This would equal 10 blocks a week. Since all the research stresses how important it is for children to just spend time reading, they would "Read to Self" once a day. This would give them 2 1/2 hours a week of reading. This leaves 5 blocks to divide the remaining Daily 5 categories. I will cover "Listen to Reading" with our Read Aloud. That leaves: "Read to Someone", "Word Work" and "Work on Writing". We are still required to teach out of our basal reader, so the story and the lesson that week will determine how many of the three remaining blocks are required. Some weeks I might want to work with vocabulary more so they would have two blocks of word work to fill. Another week, if we have a long story, they might need two days to read to someone. So here is an example of how one week of this schedule might work. The students would keep track of what they did during each block on this chart.

 

August 13-17 Requirements	5 blocks of Read to Self (R) One per day 2 blocks of Read to Someone (RS) 2 blocks of Word Work (WW) 1 block of Writing (W)
	Block 1	Block 2
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Thursday
Friday

This is just a very rough sketch. Hopefully my ideas will continue to evolve so I can make this work for my classroom. I have a few more ideas but I'm going to go for now. I'll write about the other ideas next time. In case you are unfamiliar with the books I mentioned, here are some links. :o)

Here is a link to the website of the authors of The Daily 5  and The CAFE Book

Shopping and a Blog

I'm still loving that it is summer break but I'm working at least part of every day on getting ready for next year! Yesterday I met with one of my colleagues up at the school and then worked in my classroom. Today I did one of my favorite things...shopping for my classroom! I went to The Apple Tree in Tulsa. On my list of things to get were pencils and bookmarks for the first day, posters for my 40 book challenge, new border for my library area and a welcome poster for outside my door. I decided to go with a Dr. Seuss theme just for the entry to my classroom. I will hang this poster

by my door. And I will use this border

around my door. I will post a picture after I get it all put up.

After shopping, I came home and began perusing the internet for more ideas for my classroom. I came across a great blog! Teaching My Friends! She has so many great ideas. I'm sure I will use many of them.

P.S. If you are interested in finding out what the 40 Book Challenge is, you can read about it in Donalyn Miller's book, The Book Whisperer. I will explain the way I do it in more detail in a later post. :0) Hope you are having a great summer!

The Marshmallow Challenge

I wanted to share with you something that I did on the first day of school last year and am excited to do on the first day of school this year. It is a great community building project and an entertaining way to break the ice and begin to get to know each other. During the last few days of school, I asked students to write down their favorite memories of 5th grade and this activity was on almost everyone's list...including mine. It is called The Marshmallow Challenge. You can find out more about it here: The Marshmallow Challenge

It does not cost much and with these few ingredients, students are quickly working together to win the challenge. They encourage each other and even cheer on the other teams. It is neat to see the different ways students approach the same problem. I enjoyed it. The students enjoyed it. It was a great success.

These are students from my 5th grade class.