Classroom Setup

Like all teachers at this time of the year, I've been busy getting the classroom ready. I've moved back into a room I had a few years ago with blue walls, so the blue fabric bulletin boards from the last few years had to be retired and the lime green came back out. I think I may have gone a little overboard, and I'm eagerly anticipating getting some student work up on the walls!

The classroom library had a small overhaul to even out the genre baskets. Over the years, I've gotten new books and some have gone mysteriously missing, so I had overflowing baskets and some that were empty. Showcasing more of the series books that I had was also a goal, so I made more space for them between baskets. Lastly, I wanted to add back in a section of picture books and more non-fiction books for social studies, so I added the magazine files on top of the shelf. I need to make myself a promise to not buy any more book bins from Target, and to only get rid of old books in order to make space for newer books in better condition.

The next project was to add an extra bulletin board for WOW work. Since I am co-teaching this year and we have two classrooms worth of space, we had to come up with some extra creative uses for the bulletin boards. I plan to showcase examples of WOW work here with a little note explaining why each piece was chosen, whether it be for neatness, exceptional improvement, perseverance, showing all of their work, or... well, anything that WOWs me! I love these little Scrappin' Doodles forest babies. They also made an appearance on my birthday board with some cute little mushrooms. There were only so many puns I could come up with for the animals though ('beary' good work, something to hoot about, no stinkin' thinkin' here, couldn't stump you, etc.) I hope at least one kid gets my humor!

And lastly, my classroom door. There are those little Scrappin' Doodles making an appearance! They make me happy... and so do chocolate and marshmallows. What could be better?

DIY projects

DIY Project #1:

I was cleaning out some old kindergarten supplies and came across the purple drawer container which used to house all of my alphabet stamps. I thought it could be a cute desk holder for all of those knick-knacks that get cluttered around, so I brought it home for a little TLC. I peeled off all the old ABC stickers and gave it a good cleaning, printed out some new labels and taped them on (I would have put them on the inside, but the label goo didn't come off), and then painted the outside with an acrylic paint. Total cost: $1.87. Not bad!

DIY Project #2:

After finishing the bin makeover, I was still feeling crafty. One of my biggest frustrations is the piles of paper on my teacher table. A pile to grade, a pile to file, and a pile to pass back. If only there were some better way to organize it all! A quick trip to the store for the container and 4 sheets of scrapbook paper, a few minutes of cutting and modge podging, and a hunt through my current hanging folders in other spots to find 4 that match the color scheme, and voila... A new organizer for my table! Total cost: under $8.

Maybe this will finally be the year that my table looks organized? 

Birds of a Feather...

One of my biggest pet peeves about classroom jobs is the kids not doing them regularly (my custodian agrees when the trash cans aren't put out into the hall at the end of the day!) So, when I started the year, I decided to put job descriptions right on the job cards! I also wanted to include some more challenging jobs for students who wanted to go above and beyond in the classroom. And so, a new set of jobs was born... 9 regular jobs (green with yellow name tags) which would be changed every two weeks, and the 5 specialist jobs (pink) which would be changed every month.

The 9 regular job titles have all students rotating through them. Some jobs can or should be held by more than one student:

* Movement Coordinator - 1
* Caboose - 1
* Attendance Secretary - 1
* Office Supplies Manager - 1
* Librarian - 1 or 2
* Homework Secretary - 1
* Substitute - 1
* Bloggers - 2
* Clean Up Crew - As many as needed

There are also 5 specialist jobs which students can apply for if they feel it is an area of interest. A 6th job was added when we studied the 13 Colonies and American Revolution. I wanted to tax the students to give them a sense of what it felt like to be a colonist, so I first had to pay them! A banker job was the perfect way to hook them into the ticket payments, and the job was taken away soon after the tickets and taxes ended. In order to hold a specialist job, students must first apply by filling out the application form. I must say, I have been really impressed with some of the answers the kids have given! These jobs were revealed a few weeks into the school year, once students were comfortable with their regular jobs and had a chance to apply.

*Classroom Photographer
*Technology Specialist
*Absence Assistant
*Receptionist
*Deputy
*Banker

Here is my original "Birds of a Feather WORK Together" board in August before the kids names were put up, and before the specialist jobs were revealed.

If you would like to use these jobs in your own classroom, I have shared them on TpT. I have included all 15 jobs cards and blank name cards, 2 extra blank job cards so you can create your own jobs, the Specialist Application, blogging instructions, a reminder card to hang by the phone, and a title card for your bulletin board.

When You Enter...

I came to the sudden realization the other day that except for the little welcome bird I made, my doors were quite empty!  Worse yet, I have two doors to my classroom.  So, a quick Pinterest search, a hunt for fonts, a little scrapbook paper... and voila!  It's nothing too fancy, but I like that it gives credence to so many different roles that students may take on within the course of a day in my classroom.

Classroom Tour

Well, I'm not done, but I at least left today with a room full of clean tables that look presentable.  I'm still waiting for my TV to be remounted in my new room, and after that is done I can hang the framed posters I made. I'm also still looking for the cursive alphabet chart that went missing over the summer, and lockers and cubbies still need to be labeled, and... well, the list never really ends, does it?  But, I snapped a few overall pictures of the room before I left today.

 Supply shelves, reading area, and possibly the wall where the TV will be mounted.  The bird nests look really tiny hanging up there in these pictures. Maybe once the rest of the wall stuff goes up, it won't look so odd.

 Looking towards the back table where I will work with students.  Love those curtains and windows, but dislike the black blinds underneath.  They will stay hidden as much as possible!

 Just going around the room... my desk is in the back corner.

Computer and extra work tables, cubby "island", and my little storage cube that I *love*, but that flag needs to be moved to another location. I keep running into it when I stand at the cube and do any work there.

The front of the room... the crates managed to last the year last year, though the fabric looks a little worn.  Hoping I can get another year out of them.  And I like my little pennant... adds just enough of a splash of color.

And, just to compare... this was what the room looked when I first started setting up... black blinds, no bulletin board on the far wall.

DIY Projects

Moving to a new grade level for the second year in a row, I didn't quite know where to start again this summer.  I brought home curriculum and textbooks, downloaded all of the common core standards, started looking at what went wrong last year that needed to be improved... but most importantly, since I will have some of the same kids that I had last year, I needed a new classroom theme!  And that meant that the cute DIY projects took precedence over everything else for a while!

My room was repainted, and while the color is lighter than it was before, it's still quite yellow.  Pair that with wooden cubbies, wood trim, a wooden desk, wood doors... it was a little overwhelming and needed some contrast and color!  I am a huge fan of the white shelves and cart that I painted last year, with all of my clear and white bins, so that helped.  I decided to get rid of the lime green bulletin boards and trade it for turquoise, and then I found the cute, white, Boho Birds borders to tie it all together.

After a few trips to the craft stores, I had tulle, scrapbooking paper, a cute wooden bird cutout (on clearance for a dollar), a few small wood birds, small wood rectangles, small clothespins, glitter glue, glue dots, and probably a few other things.

The large bird is decoration for the classroom door, the medium birds will be locker tags, and the small birds and white rectangles will be the dismissal board.

Tulle and scrapbook paper turned into cute little nested birds to number the tables.

Leftover scrapbook paper turned into a pennant to hang above the white board and all the little critters my kids have given me over the years (two sided means it's even pretty in from the hallway!)

Here is the bird on the door with my homemade "curtains" (scrapbook cardstock punched into circles and sewn together on the sewing machine), and my jobs board with the glittered clothespins to hold the name cards.  The 5 jobs at the top will be revealed a few weeks into school, and students will need to apply for those 'Specialists' jobs.

Now that everything is hung up, I guess I better dig back into the planning!

Classroom Library Reorganization

Moving to a new grade level, yet again, and inheriting books from the outgoing 4th grade teacher gave me another chance at getting my classroom library organized in a more meaningful way.  I got it about half way there last year, but even with the system I was using, I found that kids kept reading the same series of books over, and over, and over... So, I wanted to organize more by genre this year.

I once again had high hopes for some of the book cataloging apps, and pulled up the Classroom Organizer app that I tried using last year, but still found it too frustrating with the lack of titles in the database.  It was also too cumbersome to label each book with level and genre after I scanned it in.  Even for the books that I put in manually, it was inconsistent when it came to checking them out to students.  So, that app has since been deleted.  If only Amazon and Scholastic would get together to create an amazing app to catalog books (already including their levels and genres) and check them out... Ahhhh, one can only dream.  Anyway, back to the classroom library.

Looking up every single title in the Scholastic Book Wizard can be quite tedious.  My mom made the silly mistake of saying "If there is anything I can do to help you with your classroom, let me know." She probably thought she was off the hook living hundreds of miles away, but you can probably guess what request came next!  I took pictures of stacks of books and sent them off in emails, and magically emails came back giving me the levels and genres of all of the books.  After that, I just had to match emails to the piles of books, then put a genre sticker on each book and write the level on the back.  This project NEVER would have gotten finished if I didn't have help! (Thanks, mom!)

I'm pleased with the way everything is set up now.  One shelf is baskets of books sorted by genre, one shelf is popular authors and series, and the last shelf is sort of the "Land of Misfit Toys."  There are also a few baskets of non-fiction picture books and informational books.  When I created the labels, I changed to rectangles instead of circles, since they didn't seem to stay on so well last year.  I also created dividers for the books that are not in baskets, in the hopes that giving everything it's designated place will encourage students to put books back where they belong.  We will see how long those dividers last, but hopefully this will encourage kids to try reading new books and authors.

Peanut Free/Nut Free Posters

As I was walking down the hallway at school yesterday, I noticed that everyone has their peanut free posters hanging up, and it's the same posters, year after year.  So, I put together some new peanut free signs, and this time added actual peanut pictures to them instead of just making them classroom themed.  I also made table labels, and a list of peanut free snacks to send home to parents.  You can get a copy through my TpT store or my Teachers Notebook store.

I Can Posters - 4th Grade Math

Last year I put together a set of "I Can" Posters for Math and ELA for Third Grade, which hung on my wall and could help students keep track of what their goals were.  As I change grade levels, I wanted to remake them for fourth grade.  The math posters are done, and hopefully I can find the patience to muddle through the ELA standards before the new year starts!  If you would like to use them in your classroom, they are available both on my TpT store and my Teachers Notebook store.

Inspirational Posters

The mix of emotions in switching grade levels can be overwhelming. Excitement at the prospect of something new, and in this case getting to work with a great group of kids for the second year in a row, yet apprehension about a brand new curriculum.  In my case, it's the second year in a row for this range of emotions and without being able to get into my new room to start organizing things physically, all I can do is sit and plan things out in my head or on paper.  And boy do I have notes and new projects started everywhere! I'm happy to finally be finishing a thing or two on my to-do list!

The one thing I do know is that my new classroom is getting a fresh coat of paint, and it's a bright yellow (quite a change from the calming blue I had last year).  I wanted to keep the same clean, organized look that I had last year, but I needed to switch up the color scheme a bit from the bright lime and turquoise I had.  Perhaps a set of posters with little inspirational sayings would be nice if they were in white frames?  But wouldn't that get expensive?  Lucky for me, I was able to find 4-packs of black document frames at the Christmas Tree Shop for $4.99... who can pass up 8 frames for $10? A few coats of white paint and, voila!  That left finding just the right posters to match and fit into my frames, and they seemed to be non-existent, so I decided to create them myself.

These are 6 out of the 8 posters, ready to be hung.  If you are interested in your own copy of the posters, you can find them on my TpT store, or my Teacher's Notebook store.  Enjoy!

Anchor Charts - Take 2

Well, it's been a busy few months, and I've added a few anchor charts to the list as the months have gone on, and finally got around to putting an updated version on TpT and on Teachers Notebook.  The new charts include:

Reading:
Homophones

Writing:
Their, There and They're
y to i (adding endings)
Crazy for Commas
When Do I Need a New Paragraph?
Fiction Writing

Math:
Math Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)

Third Grade Tweets

My third graders were excited when I posted my Third Grade Tweets door for them to write on.  Each child has their own tweet board that I wrote their name on, and there is a card that tells them the "tweet topic of the day'.  I will probably change the topic once a week for the kids.  I have posted the different papers as a freebie on my TpT store, and also included a header for fourth and fifth grades.

Classroom Tour

Whew.  The room is finally done!  Well, I suppose you're never really done, but it's close enough that I'm not going back in to school until our professional day on Tuesday.  I still have a few things to label for the students and I'm sure I missed a few things that I won't realize until the students arrive, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the room for now.  So here are a few photos of the room setup:

 

View of the classroom as you walk in the door by my desk.  The doors to the other 3rd grade classroom (with the F and E on them) are open.

 Starting to the right of the top photo and working counter clockwise around the room... the view of my desk and the CAFE board.

Computer table and a bulletin board which will be used to display student writing.  Right behind this center is an island of student cubbies which also serves as a divider between the computers and the classroom library area.

 Classroom library... I had a hard time deciding how to organize books.  It was much easier working by theme in Kindergarten!  The small baskets are all series books, large tubs are picture books (fiction and non-fiction) and reference books.  The middle shelf on the left favorite authors, and the middle shelf on the right is random chapter books alphabetically by author.  You can just see to the right of the shelves the two balance disks which children can use on the floor or at their seats, and there is also one of those sitting pillows.

 Still moving counter clockwise, there is a student table on the back wall, and then my kidney table area.  There are two student swivel chairs, and two balance balls which the kids can pull over.  I have them sitting on upside down frisbees so they don't roll away!  I put felt on the frisbees so they wouldn't scratch up the floors.

 This wall is all of the student supplies.  Mostly math supplies in the two rolling carts, my word work bin, bins of math games in folders to go with the Everyday Math program etc.  I love having everything labeled so that the kids know where it goes!  The two bulletin boards here will be for "Wonderous Words" and something else that we are working on in science or social studies.

 And, the Boggle Board!  I stapled magnets to the bulletin board and then put magnets on all of the letters.  I used the business card magnets since they are flat.  Those rolls of magnets drive me crazy when they curl up!  The little tub on the bottom is a thin plastic container I found at Target last spring.  It is flimsy enough that I could staple it to the board, but sturdy enough to hold all of the letters.  Perfect!

 Just to the left of the Boggle Board is my common core "I Can" posters.  I will put the standards we are working on to the front.

 This is a shot from the kidney table looking towards the front of the room.  There is a second classroom door next to the I Can posters.

 

Next is the classroom jobs and attendance chart.  Students put their daily folders and agendas in the basket each morning.

 

 The front wall and rug area.  My crates sort of blend in since they are so dark in the picture, but I really like the way they turned out!

 And a close up of my little owls.  I love them!  I can clip in new table names on the bottoms to match something we are doing in class.  If we are studying synonyms, I might choose 4 synonyms for the word great to name the tables (awesome table, super table etc.)  When we study explorers or countries, I might change them to reflect those topics.

 I love this storage "cube".  Each side is a different material... whiteboard, chalkboard, felt board and cork board.  The magnetic side faces the door and has magnets for the kids to sign out if they are leaving the room.  This side is my "Ambitious Aces" information (based on the Mastery Club that is making the rounds online).

And, that's the end.  I hope you enjoyed the tour!

CAFE Board

I put together a set of CAFE headers, with all of the strategies for my new classroom, which I have available on TpT. I've included the CAFE letters, the headers with their descriptions, and all of the strategies, some of which can be seen in the image below. Also included in the file, but not shown in the picture, are blank sheets where students can put their sticky notes to show which strategy they're working on. I was planning to use them, but I am doing daily five with the other third-grade teacher, and we are having all the students put their sticky notes on the board in her room. The signs that you can see on the bulletin board are available in my daily five download.

Daily 5 - Center Management

I needed a matching sign for my Daily 5 centers for a 6th choice - Work With Teacher, and of course I couldn't find anything... so, what was left to do but create my own new set!  So, here it is... my Daily 5 Center Management packet.  6 posters, small cards for students to keep track of their centers (see photo below), teacher check in sheets, and a sheet for conference an observation notes.  You can download the Daily 5 Center Management packet on my Teachers Notebook store.