There's a SPOT for you!

I hereby promise to attempt to keep a blog. For reals! I have been terrible about keeping up this blog. Best intentions, but then reality set in. As I was teaching my students this morning about how blogs are a type of text, I showed them my blog... and realized just how long it's really been since I posted! Yikes!

This is my second year at my current school, and it's amazing how different the second year can be. This is my third school, and it never ceases to amaze me how much better the second year is. I'm finally settled in an enjoying my class.

It's a bit late for this, but I still thought I'd highlight a few of the changes I've made to my classroom this year. I've perused a gazillion blogs around the cyber world and made a decision to embrace a classroom theme. I chose polka dots!

For today, I thought I'd show you our hallway bulletin board and locker decorations that go along with our polka dot theme!

My student teacher got construction paper and began to cut lots and lots and lots of circles. She cut some slightly smaller than the others and layered two colors to make more interesting spots.

This picture isn't the best, but you'll get the idea. I printed the class names onto mailing labels in a fun font. I made several sheets of their names so I could label everything---books, bags, folders, name tags, files, etc. I don't know why it's never occurred to me to do this before! It saved loads of time! 

This was our hallway bulletin board. I don't love the brown on brown, but I wasn't thinking it through when I pulled everything together, so it just happened that way and I was too lazy to cut out new letters. :) It was still readable, and I got a lot of compliments on it.

We made the word SPOT 3-D by hot gluing pieces of drinking straws to the back and then hot gluing sticky tabs to those to hang them on the board. I love the little POP of those letters.  

We also made coordinating "spots" for the locker labels. We're fortunate enough to have these lockers right outside our classroom for each student.  

Have I mentioned what a mammoth bulletin board this hallway board is? I can't even get a very good picture of the whole thing. This is my best attempt. 

Happy teaching, everyone. See you SOON, I promise. :) 

Done {enough}: Classroom Tour

Well, folks, it's done. Enough. For this year.

I'm never *quite* satisfied with my classroom, but I think it'll get there. Part of it is because I'm at a new school this year. I'm in a new classroom. I haven't had 20 kids in there yet to figure out how the flow will go and what areas need to be accessible... you get the idea. But, it's done enough for the start of school this year. It's functional. And I think it's pretty enough and homey enough for Open House on Monday night.

Okay, okay...enough talk... pictures. I was going to put some in the post, but then I realized I had 42. Um...yeah. I really only took pictures for a couple of minutes, but I guess I take them fast. Soo.... I made a slideshow for your enjoyment! :) Let me know what you think!


I'm linking up here and here with other amazing teachers who are ready to reveal their rooms, too!

 

Back to School Jitters!

Back to school jitters, anyone? I sure have them!

Does everyone else get the really weird Back to School dreams, too? You know, like dreaming that you show up for school on the first day only to find you're at the wrong school, or that you can't find your classroom, or that only the parents show up and you're not wearing any shoes! I'm telling you what, friends. A psychologist would have a hey day with all of my Back to School dreams! What's the weirdest one you've had?

Got some Back to School Jitters? Click below to link up at A Turn to Learn

Home Sweet Classroom: Curtains!

Let's face it. We, as teachers, practically LIVE in our classrooms. And so, if you're anything like me, your classroom has to be a little bit COZY. Right?

Well, as you can see, my classroom this year started out as anything BUT cozy.

A whole wall of windows? Yikes! Curtains, now! Plus, there's a large air conditioning unit in the corner of my classroom and it is LOUD when it's running. Some fabric might help absorb some of the sound from the A/C. Maybe. Hopefully. Fingers crossed.

So... SEW... I began the search for some curtains. Knowing that I couldn't possibly afford to hang curtains over all of the windows, I focused on the five small windows at the bottom. First stop was a fabric store, but I left empty-handed and discouraged that it would cost me my firstborn child a fortune to buy quality fabric to make curtains.

Next stop: the WMart. I looked at curtains and sheets. Nothing I liked. Ventured back to the fabric section to grab some Velcro (for an entirely different project) and as I rounded the corner, I came face-to-face with this:

YES! That's it! Cute, but not "girly." Polka dots. Whimsical. Gender-neutral. Very colorful. Sign me up. So I waited. (And waited, waited, waited) for someone to come cut 4 yards of this lovely fabric for me. And then I paid $28 for it (more than I wanted to spend, but a bargain for perfection!).

And then I brought it home and dragged the sewing machine out of the storage room and gathered my mother and my grandmother (I'm still a sewing novice, so I need them!) and we went to work. 3 hours later we piled in the car, our new creations in the trunk, and headed to my classroom to hang them up!

I LOVE them! There's still so much work to do in my room before school starts TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY (AHHHHHH!!!), but these curtains make my heart happy, and warm up the room so much already! Lucky for me, the teacher store has tons of stuff that matches my new curtains... it's all called Dots on Chocolate, and you'll be seeing much more of that in the coming days. Hooray!

Birthday Bags

Been working a bit in my classroom today... I met with the other 4th grade teachers to pace out our lessons for the first week of school. I still need to actually write out my plans and figure out which procedures to teach and practice on which days, but it feels pretty good to have the first week mapped out!

The next order of business for today was to get some of the stuff for birthday bags. I stole this idea from Jo Anne, my cooperating teacher the first 3 years of my teaching career. Needless to say, she's genius. :) At the beginning of the year, I put together birthday bags for each of my students. I buy cellophane bags, like the ones below that are available online. I always get mine at the Dollar Tree. 

The kids are generally just excited that you have something for them, they're not typically critical of what's IN the bag, so I try to keep the cost down. This year I put in the following:

One Airhead

One Ring Pop

One smiley face bouncy ball

A party whistle

A spinning top

And... the  Pièce de résistance .... 

Let's be honest, they really only want the homework pass. But I think they like the candy, too! :) And this way, the birthday bags are finished and in the cabinet in my classroom. On the morning of a student's birthday, I just place one on their desk, along with the button they get to wear for the day. 

To me, it's an easy, yet significant way to honor my young friends on their special days. It doesn't take a lot of time, or a lot of money, but I acknowledge their day and give them a night without homework to celebrate with their family. 

What do you do to celebrate your students' birthdays? 

Grub Work

And so it has begun.... today was the third day I spent in my classroom. I'm so thankful that the school kitchen had these HUGE carts that I could use. I unloaded a van load of stuff in about 20 minutes... hooray!

I began by stacking it against the cabinets so that I could arrange the desks before all of my stuff inevitably explodes around the room. (I told myself it wouldn't, but let's be realistic...) So then I arranged the furniture...

This is the first year that I'm not starting the year in rows... I'll let you know if I like it this way or not! I've also decided I'm going to let the kids pick their seats for the first day...they can claim their spot at Open House the day before. After all, I'm just making random guesses by placing them somewhere, so I'd rather let them choose and then fix it later if it turns out to be an error in their judgment.

I started arranging the shelves for my class library. I clearly do NOT have enough bookshelves in this classroom...and I even brought two of my own! I will have to remedy this somehow very soon....

 By the end of day one, I had at least the bulletin board behind my desk almost finished (notice the border jetting out the top and bottom of my board...I couldn't find my scissors!)

 And, as promised, by the start of day 2, I had stuff everywhere....

Day 3...I solicited some help from my very sweet and willing friend, Sharon. Thanks to her, all the bulletin boards now have at least paper and a border!

(Yes, I teach in a Christian school, so this bulletin board is A-Ok! :)

My desk is STARTING to resemble a space I'd like to hang out in. I'm hanging scanned copies of my college diploma, and my teaching license. The frame on the bottom is a sweet certificate my 5th graders from a couple of years ago made for me. 

And, finally, another finished product thanks to Sharon's hard work... my cabinets are all labeled! I stole this idea from my friend Julie, who teaches 5th grade at a local public school. I walked into her classroom one day and noticed her genius! Now when a kid asks for, say, construction paper, I say, "It's in cabinet O." Brilliant! I used die cut letters I had gotten in a big pack at Target once upon a time, and then put clear contact paper of them to attach. Love!