Monday Made It

Participating again in Fourth Grade Frolic's Monday Made It!

My Monday Made It's are all kind of half completed projects, but I figured I would show them anyways because I haven't finished anything yet. I worked all day in my classroom today, and will probably do the same for the rest of the week. So I am getting things done, but its all so overwhelming that it doesn't feel like I have made a scratch in the work that needs to be done. Sigh...

The first thing you will notice on all of these pictures, is that they are not super pretty. I am no artist, and I am going for speed and functionality over spending hours making every little thing look amazing. I doubt my students will notice, even though my pictures wont look nearly as amazing as so many of the pinterest pictures that teachers are posting.

The first thing I did when I got into the classroom this morning was to create a space on my whiteboard for my class/group points and a special place for the homework. I used blue artist tape, which I got from Michaels, because it leaves 0 residue on the board if you have to take it off.

The next thing I did was create a card pull system. This is used school-wide. I don't mind it at all, but I don't think I would have a choice even if I did. But I like that it is school wide since the students come in already understanding it. I need to update the "How is your day?". It was used by the past teacher and is yellowed and old. I am probably going to try to come up with something that matches our Mystery/Investigation theme, like "You got caught!" or something like that.

This isn't completely done because I still need to buy see-through decorative stones from the Dollar Tree, and then finish the magnets. But this is going to be both my sign-in and bathroom regulation system. At the end of the day, I will move all of the magnets to "Absent". Then, when students come in in the morning, they will move their magnet to "Here". This will give me an easy way to do attendance, as all of the magnets that haven't been moved are the actual Absent students.

In my classroom, I have the rule that only one boy and one girl can be at the bathroom at the same time. This is to prevent chit chat in the bathrooms, especially from those sneaky youngsters who go to the bathroom specifically to talk with their best friend about something. As students leave the room, they will put their magnet in the bathroom spot. Other students will be able to see that someone is out, and that they have to wait.

I have like nothing magnetic in my room so I bought a 5 dollar pizza trey. I do wish I would have gone with a square shape because I could surround the whole thing with ribbon like I wanted to. I got the ribbon for 1 dollar at Michaels and I really like it. My classroom colors are dark blue and lime green this year.

Nothing new or special here. I finished making Pick Sticks, with student's numbers as well as a red dot on the other side. That way, when a student has been picked, I can turn the stick upside down and I will know not to pick that stick until others have a turn.

And this isn't a Made It, but I am almost done with my classroom library. A pretty nice haul for a brand new teacher, yes? I got super lucky by having tons of generous people donate books to me. I am super grateful.

The one thing I am sad about is that inevitably this entire section is going to be super unorganized again, with books put back in every which way. I am going to try to put different colored stickers on different books so that they go back to their section, but I can totally see this getting messy quick.

Right now, I have all of my Non-fiction books displayed on the top right, and then I have my Multicultural books on the bottom, with a few just regular Picture Books in the very back of that section. Then I put all of the Series Chapter Books together (Box Car Children, Magic Tree House, Nancy Drew etc.). The rest of the chapter books are just thrown all together.

Alright, well that is all for today. I am working in my classroom every day this week, so hopefully I will post more updates later.

Classroom: Before

I spent my first day in my new classroom today! I didn't get that much done. Mainly, I inventorized everything to figure out what I have and what I still need to get, and then I set up the desks, and thats pretty much it.

Here are some verdicts:

1. The room is actually pretty dang big when you only have 20 desks to take up room. Once I set up the desks, I still had a good quarter of the room with completely empty space. I am going to be able to set up a teacher's table for small groups, and a nice little library area. I am very pleased with this

2. I have more storage space than I thought. When I first saw the room, my first thought was "Oh no, there is like no storage space" because I was comparing it to my resident teacher's classroom from when I student taught. In comparison, there is like NO storage space. Here's the deal though. I have no things. So the "little" storage space I have is going to be standing pretty empty for a looooong time :-P

3. The amount of bulletin board I have to decorate is freaking me out! I measured dimensions, and I have 70 feet of bulletin board to fill up. HOLY SMOKES!!!! I am feeling a bit overwhelmed. On the other hand, once I finally get that done, its going to be really nice.

4. Nothing is magnetic in my room! One teensy tiny filing cabinet and that is it. Not even the whiteboard is magnetic. I honestly couldn't believe it. I stuck a magnet on it, and stared dumbfounded as it dropped to the floor. Lol, never in my life have I seen a whiteboard that isn't magnetic.

Anyways, here are some "Before" pictures!

This is the view, slightly to the left, from the door. I like the white bulletin boards (it brightens up the room since the walls are dark brown) but the orange has got to go! I do not like the color orange, so its just not working for me.

Our school theme is Mystery/Investigation, i.e. Sherlock Holmes/FBI/etc. so really I should be going with black or something. But I don't care. I am going with bright lime green, and I don't care that it doesn't really work with the theme! I love bright lime green :-)

 Back of the classroom. The cloth covers up a mini refrigerator and microwave, and a piece of plywood that was used to connect the two drawers. I am going to try to find a cuter cloth to cover it up, because the burlap isn't working for me.

My desk is massive! Which is kind of a bad thing, because it just gives me more space to pile huge amount of paper and things, without having to clean them up. I know this from my massive desk at home, which I basically can't even work on cause its so messy. Uh oh!

Also, I love the yellow bulletin board behind my desk. Which is funny, because I usually don't like the color yellow. It is definitely staying.

 See that tangle of cables on that table. Yeah...that took me 45 minutes to untangle. It was bad. This table was designed to hold the projector, but you have to place it in the middle of the room and it takes up a ton of space. So I squished everything onto a desk instead, and will be using the table as a group table.

          I love that the desks are pretty small. It makes the room seem so much bigger once I set everything up in table groups. However, I do not love that all of the desks are different heights. I am not OCD, but that was really bugging me. Oh well, nothing that can be done. I currently have 16 desks in the class, so I need 3 to 4 more.

          Also visible in this picture is the huge amount of chapter books that were left for me. I also got donated a ton of books by a teacher moving on to be a vice principal, so my class library is going to be quite sizable for a first year teacher! Yay!

Ok well, those were the "Before" pictures! Hopefully, I will have a blog post in the next month with the "After" pictures. I am not a good organizer OR a good decorator, so I am a bit overwhelmed, but hopefully it is going to look nice.

Basically, this is my reaction to school right now:

Create curriculum? No problem!

Teach lessons? Totally got it!

Behavior Management? Gonna nail it!

Organize and Decorate the Classroom? AAAAAHHHH I CANT DO THIS! I CAN NEVER BE A TEACHER!

Lol.

Monday Made It - Posters Posters Posters

I am going to try to link up with a Linky for the very first time. Wish me luck! I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics "Monday Made it". Lets just hope I do it right!

As a brand new teacher, I basically am starting completely from scratch, so I have tons of projects planned before school starts. I still have to iron out exactly how I want my Classroom Management to work, and which procedures I want to use.

I don't even have the rooms to my classroom yet (I get those tomorrow!), so for now I am just working on posters that I know for sure I will be using in my class, and that I can easily make from home. 

None of these are laminated yet, which I need to do. Can you believe this? This newbie teacher has never laminated a single thing in her life! Haha, I really need to figure out how it works and get on that!

1. Stop Light Comprehension

        I found this idea on Pinterest and absolutely love it. I am a huge fan of formative assessments as well as asking students to reflect on their own understanding. This is such a convenient way of doing that. In my student teaching placement, I used to sometimes give out short 3 question quizzes after certain important lessons in order to determine how my students were understanding what I was trying to teach. But that resulted in a lot of paperwork. 

        I am going to be using this as an Exit Slip System. With this new poster, I will be able to hand out sticky notes, give one problem, and students will self-reflect by placing their sticky note on one of the three lights. I feel that this will give me way more information. Two students might both get the answer right, but if one of them puts their sticky on the Yellow Light, I will know that maybe she/he is not that confident with the skill and would appreciate some more practice.

2. Noise-0-Meter

          Again, something I saw on Pinterest. My resident teacher last year had an actual stoplight with flashing lights and everything, which she had purchased at a teacher store. But, since I am just starting out and there are so many things I need to buy, I couldn't justify such a purchase so I made a poster instead.

          This project isn't quite done. Once I buy clothes pins, I am going to glue a paper saying "We are using our" which will then be clipped to the level that the class is supposed to be at.

3. Cluedo Whole-class Incentive!

       I am most excited about this, because it is completely my own idea! At my school, the entire school does a theme each year...unlike other places where just the teachers do their own individual theme in the classroom. This year, the theme is "Mystery/Investigation".

       My normal Whole-class incentive is "PAT points". The class gets points for good transitions, working well and quietly etc., and once they reach 50 points they get to choose a 30 minute activity of their choice (for instance, Capture the Flag, watch a movie etc.). Well, I got the brilliant idea to pair this system up with our school's theme.

       Here's how it is going to work:

Students earn PAT points as usual by getting rewarded for good behavior. However, instead of working towards 50 points, students are trying to earn clues to solve the mystery. Every 5 points, I will give out one new clue about either the suspects, murder weapon, or crime scene. When the students solve the crime, they will be rewarded for their detective work with a 30 minute activity of their choice. Of course, I am going to rig the clues so that its going to take them about 10-15 clues to solve the mystery (i.e. 50 points just like my old system). I really think that the kids are going to be excited about this, and can't wait to implement it!

Ok, well that is it! Tomorrow I meet with my principal and get my classroom keys. I will make sure to get into my classroom and take some "Before" pictures!

I have a job!

Ok, so technically this is old news since I have known for a few weeks, but I am only just getting around to blogging about it.

I got a job! Next year, I am going to be a 4th grade teacher in a small Christian Private School. The staff seems super nice and supportive; they have a rigorous curriculum adopted from the California State Standards, and the school is only a ten minute commute from my house. But what I am most excited about is the class size! I haven't seen my roster yet, but I will definitely have less than 20 students in my class this year, which is absolutely amazing. Last year, I had 34 students in my student teaching placement, so I have the potential of having a class that is half the size. I am so excited! This is going to give me the opportunity to focus so much more on individual needs in my classroom than I would be able to with so many students. It will also be a slightly smaller workload with just a bit less grading, less parent conferences etc. which is awesome for my first year of teaching since I already know I am going to be super super super busy!

I meet with my principal for an Orientation and to collect my key and teacher-version textbooks on Monday. I will hopefully bring my camera along with me so I can show you the "Before" of my classroom. I have already seen the room, and it does not have a lot of storage space, so I am going to have to get creative (no problem) and get organized (this one is tougher for me :-P)

I am already getting to work with making all kinds of posters and classroom management tools for my classroom. I will post some of that in the coming weeks as well.