Classroom 2016-17

Well the new has begun! 

Here's a walk through of what I remembered to take pictures of. :) 

This is my Monday Made It...because putting together a classroom is a lot of work! I moved rooms this year so I got to start from scratch.

I decided that I really want to push chapter book reading to my kids. My school does AR, but I'm not a huge fan of it. I'll encourage them to take tests but I really just want kids who love to read! I'm also going to be the 5th grade Battle of the Books coach this year! Super excited about it!

Here's the beginning of my classroom library...

Welcome back breakfast and presents for our classrooms! It's so quick and quite! We'll see how long it lasts. Ha ha.

I got my little fridge with a healthy lunch! I have a goal of actually eating (I sometimes forget/run out of time) and not always eating the best. 

We had our back to school picnic on Thursday, 2 days before kids came back. 

My room *looked* fairly put together and I had their flipbooks ready to take home. I wrote their names on it so I could tell who came and who didn't. I'm good at names and remembering, but that's a lot to ask for a busy night! 

T

Thanks to Chalk & Apples for her easy to edit flip book!

My lunch count/attendance this year! I'm trying out magnets on the side of my big filing cabinet. We didn't actually do it today, so we'll so how it goes tomorrow on the 2nd day!

I love how it's a great way to keep wall space the cabinet would usually eat up.

I used washi tape, a label makers, and adhesive magnetic strips.

My finished reading area! Famous First Lines by Literacy for Big Kids are posted and make me super happy! I also have some of the Battle books up for kids to look at. 

My books are organized by author's last name. I was thinking about using Lessons with Laughter's rainbow labels because I've been eyeing them forever but haven't yet...partly because I really like my black/teal/purple room and am being vain about the colors matching and the amount of ink I would need....lame? Maybe. I think I may at least label them with the letter of where they go. I can use school ink for that. :) 

My super simple simple and "eye catching" bulletin board with my homeroom kids' names. 

I didn't mean to but a lot of people said it looked like an eye exam board. I liked the ease of it. My board is already white and I used the school's die cutter to make the letters. Add in silver sharpie and viola... it's done. It also allowed me to help our new team member with her board and getting ready for open house.

Woo hoo! Our new 5th grade team of multitasking ninjas! 

I got the shirts from spreadshirt.com. 

We are using Brag Tags as a grade level this year.

So far they have their Back to School night and their First Day of 5th Grade tags. They were pretty excited to put them on their rings! 

This also shows a few of my drawers I used. 

I have my late work turn in spot. The drawers I'm going to use for the graded work I need to pass back. There is also a place for plain, lined, and graph paper in one. The unlabeled white drawers are going to hold coloring pages and other early finisher, relaxer activities or brain teasers.

The best look I have of my room so far...this morning before the chaos of a new year.  I had to fit 34 seats for my math class in my room. 6 tables are short and wide, 2 are just short, and 4 desks. Its cramped but we're going to have fun and find ways to move around!

I'm looking forward to a great year! 

I hope you have a fabulous one!

Check out other Monday Made Its

*Steph*

Beginnings of 2015-16 *Five for Friday*

I have ventured into my room and began the setup process. I actually started a week or so ago, but only in furniture placement. I'm still figuring out what exactly I want since I got rid of old fixtures, acquired new, and moved existing. Today I started with some smaller things to try to get my brain to focus. I did a lot of brainstorming and note taking. It's easier to think about it when I'm actually in my room. 

I started jotting down the things I needed to make labels or signs for. I initially was going to make labels for my plastic drawers. Then I realized that I don't have cutesy fonts and clipart, I don't like laminating, and that I didn't want to scour TPT looking for editable labels either paid or free. 

(I had a minor panic attack during tax season this year…time to scale back on classroom purchases.)

Last year I had ended up writing on the drawers with dry erase marker. When I tried to clean it off the first time, it wasn't working. That's why I figured I'd just make labels and cover it. Then I thought, if I can use dry erase to get Sharpie off things, it should definitely get other dry erase off. Voila! It worked. (Silly and simple, yes…. overly excited preggo over here, yes)

It is a quick easy way to label drawers in a non-permament way. If I need to change what one of the drawers is for, I don't have to recreate a label. All I do is wipe it off and write what I need it to say.

The white drawers were the first attempt to erase the marker.

The black drawers show how cleanly the dry erase came off of the top drawer and how well the dry erase label actually help up throughout the year.

I moved my blank papers from the black drawers to the white drawers for this year. 

If it fades over the year, no big deal. 

I can simply rewrite it in a fun new color, of course.

Nothing fancy, but efficient and useful. 

I will be labeling some drawers and crates, but I'll share those when I stop being mad at my Mac and my incompetency with it. :) 

So I know I made a quip but classroom purchases, but I needed new chair covers for my room. My old ones were just a tad to small since moving from 4th grade chairs to 5th grade chairs and that was an annoyance all year. Lucky for me, JoAnn Fabrics had a great sale on bottomweight material when combined with their 25% total purchase! (valid through tomorrow 7/18) 

This material will wash better than the canvas I previously used and my kids don't have have textbooks so the covers shouldn't get too abused.

My mom and I are going to whip them out while she's up here and I'm on maternity leave. That means they won't be ready for the 1st day of school, but it'll be ok.

Target dollar spot! We made a "learning corner" in our hallway. 

Kasila really likes to find things that match, so I put up her name and her soon-to-be lil sis's name. 

She found the "x" all by herself. :)

I got my hair done! 

It's not really much different from what I normally do, but it's nice to know that my roots aren't down to my ears. I also had 3 inches taken off to make up for my lack of upkeep and overabundance of split ends.

Now I just need a nice pedi for my swollen feet.

My daughter and I went on a hike (more of a walk) with some of my coworkers. It was an overcast day but it was very pretty!

I may have pushed it a little too far being 37 weeks along as I felt like I was going to die the rest of the day and didn't move far from the couch. 

Yes, my daughter hikes in tutus. 

*Steph*

Student Material Organization & Five for Friday

Hello world! I have been pretty absorbed in my own little world consisting of my classroom and my family. This year is a big change for me in school since I changed grades and math programs.

I'm going to start off with how I have organized my slightly small classroom.

First of all, I already rearranged my desks from my classroom tour. I was excited about Kagan Structures and they suggest using pods or clusters. It drove me insane! I don't think any of our upper grades ended up keeping them. We are a very structured school and a lot of us tend to like the rows of some kind. My desks are now in 4 horizontal rows with 2 outside rows facing in. I have 30 desks so each row has 5 desks. At the end of row is a 3 drawer tower.

The top drawer has the team supplies. 

It includes highlights, red correcting tools, markers (2 sets), colored pencils (2 sets), glue and a hand held sharpener for colored pencils.

There is also a scissors basket because I have the 7" blades and they are too tall to be upright.

This is also the drawer I use for my social studies class. You can see some green folders under the tub. It currently is holding the Native American packet from Rockin' Resources. These folders will change colors every 3 weeks depending on which homeroom class I have for social studies.

The second drawer is for math. 

They have their "entry folders" and their journals.

When students walk in, it the the #1s job (the student sitting next to the tower) to get out everyone's folder. The students then work on their Daily Math while I walk around and check in homework. 

You see the example says Math Minute. I am not currently do the Math Minute due to time.

They also have their time math fluency in their folder. After fluency, I have each row stack their folders into two piles, those that finished and those that did not. 

At the end of the day, I quick swap out those that did no finish and put their folders back in their tower. After I check those that are finished, I put in what they need and back in the tower. 

The bottom drawer is for reading. 

We do a lot of work in our white binders or our notebooks, both kept in their drawer.

In the white binder they have:

bell work- spelling words and DLR

fluency passage for the week

writing for their workshop time- Paragraph a Week by Teaching in Room 6

lined paper for workshop tasks

a copy of the week's story for note taking 

I received my Alaska postcards that I created thru Heritage Makers to send out!

I've already gotten a postcard from PA and CT! 

My kiddos were excited! :)

 and 

My math kids are ready to have me back in the classroom. For the last 3 afternoons, I have been able to spend the time filming some math videos. My hope is to be able to somewhat flip my math class. They will be watching the videos in class but independently on their iPads. It is definitely a chore to make the video, but I keep reminding myself that I can use these for the next 5 years since we are on a 5 year program adoption plan and this is our first year with it.

Here is what my instructional coach and I jimmy rigged to use as an iPad holder.

 One thing about technology is wait time…here's what I did while waiting for one of my videos to upload to YouTube. 

Check out my first three videos off my school website {here}. I have them unlisted so you have to have the link to view them. They are definitely rough but I'm learning!

Proud mama right here! 

My baby girl is reading to her babies. :)

Classroom Tour 2014

I am finished! 

Ok not really. 

It looks good, but I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of how things are going to run in my new classroom. We had our open house picnic on Tuesday with the class list reveal and today was the first day with students. Luckily, we don't start switching for our leveled reading and math classes until Monday. I have a general idea of how I want things go, but we'll see. This is a new grade, a new math program, a new way I am using our reading program and waiting on IT to get through some work orders. A lot of things are bound to change.

Without further ado…

Welcome to Fifth Grade!

Just inside the door, along the back wall. 

The cubbies are where my students will keep their binder/homework folder, notebooks, and other personal supplies until they are sent into their other classes.

From the other back corner

I have boxes out for some supplies if students brought them to the open house.

My teacher corner

I went to a kidney table this year and a small side table. I'm excited about not having a black hole to just drop things in. 

:)

View from my corner

My hubby made me the pine shelf and I love it! 

File crates fit perfectly and so do the three drawer organizers. 

I'm still decided what to do with the black paper trays and colored tubs. 

Last year I used them for turn in bins and each class had a designated color. I think I will do the same again this year and then when I need to go through them, set the tub on my black filing cabinets so I know that I need to take care of that tub. We'll see if I'm able to keep up on them better than last year. 

My calendar

Where I am going to try out Jivey's Mentor Sentences with my intervention reading class.

*p.s.* I had asked for some ideas on how to cover the bottom of the chalkboard where there used to be a shelf. I ended up using just a regular border. Corkboard went right up to the edge of the chalkboard so I stapled it and it worked out perfectly!

My library

Homework page to fill out for students to copy into their planner

My fun US map rug I scored at Costco

 

I have the reading intervention class so I went through and separated out series that are close to their reading levels. I also put out some picture books because I will have students with 1st-2nd grade reading levels. We'll see how it works. 

I am super excited about having it actually organized and labeled. :)

My attendance check in. 

I feel like I need something above it because the fabric is really busy but haven't figured out what I want there.

Students choose a red or blue stick and put it their pocket. This does two things, I know who is here and how many hot lunches to account for. 

*Note* One day in and that cup needs a different means of attachment. 

Right now its on a picture frame Command hook, but with students reaching in, it fell off. TWICE. 

My still work in progress texts and supply area.

Math folders

Go Math program student materials that need ripped out and organized

Empty tubs for possible reading workshop activities.

I have team tubs (which I now have to figure out where to put a 7th tub)

Go Math manipulative storage

My students store their backpacks in their desk because my closet is tiny. 

We have to keep it open for snow gear. It's not fun when a kid's back pack is soaked because of wet gear.

I also use the chair covers so students have a place to put things out of the way during reading and math since we switch for leveling.

My coat closet

I'm going to be keep extra markers, colored pencils and things like that in the tubs.

My welcome message during Open House.

The best addition to my classroom was today.

My husband has been on another out of town work assignment. He left last Monday and was suppose to come home today but it got extended another week. I feel for those single parents who work. I have been stressed and exhausted. If it wasn't for good friends, I don't know what I would have done. 

Today I received a delivery. 

A beautiful wrap of flowers from my husband! (with a little help)

I got a vase during a break and it just made my day to look at these and know that he remembered me on this day. It was perfect. I love him! 

Sorry if too mushy for you, but I do! :) 

Hope you enjoyed "visiting" my room!

*Steph*