Backdrops of My Life

Hello, 

My name is Emily.  I have realized I can't say no to a good deal, or a good sale, or a good backdrop. I also have a very supportive family that goes along with my crazy ideas.  

I wanted to share the backdrops that have made their appearance into my corner cabinet... you know the one in the classroom where things go to hide...  And by hide, I mean put away until I decorate for a mini room transformation.  

Oh no, you say, this is all about Room Transformations?  Why yes, I say... 

A couple of years ago I read The Wild Card by Wade and Hope King and it totally opened my eyes to the impact of the little things.  How it's so easy to throw a backdrop/banner up and create a new-ish environment and transport my class to somewhere new. I want to be known as Miss Frizzle, and take my kids on crazy field trips, without having to pay the bus fee.  So that's been my purpose over the last 3ish years.  To add to my menu of different ideas to spice up my teaching. 

Disclaimer - these are not ads, I don't get anything for sharing.  I just like to share.

The first backdrop that kids see during the year is this slide from Head Over Heels for Teaching.  I project this slide for our Book Tasting that Friday of the first week of school.  It's a way to celebrate the 5th day of 5th grade.  Projecting images onto the screen is so easy. We've also used the Olympic Medals and the NASA logo as well over the years.  

The next one is my global travel banner.  I use this when we go galavanting around the world on a Context Clues adventure by Teaching with a Mountain View. I also have the different flags of the world in a bunting that hangs around the classroom, and each country station also has some pictures of the location that I have printed for kids to feel like they are there.  I use this at the end of August/beginning of September when we are wrapping up our unit.

Another banner is the ocean/deserted beach one.  In October for Talk like a Pirate Day, we are also knee deep in our Explorer unit.  I use this for both. Pirate day and our Explorer Simulation.  

Then I have some other pirate, sailing, explorer items that I put on tables to decorate, and we listen to the theme song of Pirates of the Caribbean Disneyland ride over and over as background music.  

For reviewing roots, I have decorated the room as a hospital.  I hung plastic tablecloths on our hanging lights for the different operation rooms.  Kids wore masks (before they were cool), gloves, and I picked up syringe pens for them to use. They had paper people that they had to operate on to attach the roots to the prefixes and suffixes. I use this Affixes resource by Your Thrify Co-teacher. I play a heart beat over our sound to start us out.  It was so fun.  

Another one is a Minecraft one that I use for Volume.  Teaching volume makes me think of building blocks, and since the kids are Minecraft obsessed, it totally works.  We make a gallery of our volume designs.

I have a Game On banner that I use as the center of a bulletin board.  When the kids come back from winter break, we always have a talk about New Years resolutions and what they can do to step it up a notch.  This year I put it up when we moved from distance learning to hybrid. It's the final push for the new trimester.  Our goals usually hang around it as a reminder of what we want to accomplish. And yes, I know it says Leve Up, instead of Level Up.  It might be why it was such a good deal. :) The kids get a kick of telling me, as if I don't know, but it's so much fun that I don't really care.  

 

For review I love to make special days to spice it up a bit.  I have all the materials for a Glow Day.  I was gifted it from Donors Choose.  I use a banner to help cover my big window.  It blocks out a lot of light. I also was given black lights, reflective tape, glow sticks, and some cool pens that glow. This year my skylights have decided not to completely close, so it doesn't get dark enough to use it.  I'm super bummed... at least my neighbor can use them though.  :)  

My newest addition is a concert themed one for our Rock the Test review.  I picked up some inflatable instruments as well (that can easily be sprayed down). My son had a music inspired birthday a while back, and I kept his record decorations to hang on the lights.  It just makes it fun.  

I'm sure by now you are thinking that I have issues.  But it's fun and it's memorable. :)  Kids remember what they were doing and learning on these special days.  You know, when something is a little different than the ordinary. We have plenty of ordinary days too. Right now I have a bunch of these banners hanging back up in the classroom, to cover my boards for state testing.  All banners are found over on Amazon.  

Do you do theme days too? Hope you had a great day!

Current Classroom Layout - Planning for Hybrid Concurrent

I think this will work.  Chairs have to be spaced out at least 4 feet. This is more than that.  In each "pod" only one person will be seated per day.  A, B... in one row, then B, A... in the next.  So kids sitting diagonal to each other. Kids will have their own desk to keep their stuff... but their stuff will be limited because most days of the week they are still logging on from home.  Max 2-3 kids would be walking down an aisle at a time.  I don't need this many groups of desks, at least a quarter of my class has chosen distance learning full time right now.  I may only have 10 kids in here with me at a time, the other 18 will be online.  Each desk will have a shield - that’s on it way. 

  

In the front of the room I have my cart and a table to keep me organized and keep all the tech handy. I've used the table all year for my station. The leftover desks provide a pathway into the room.  I'm thinking of using it as a water bottle station. I moved most of the extras to the side and back to get more space between desks. The table, cart, and extra desks up front make a teacher area that only I will be allowed.  I can't go in their area, and they can't go in mine.  I have to stay 6 feet away.  

I have most of my decorations put away. It's still pretty bare in here.  I don't know yet what I'm allowed to have out when they come. I hope this works. I need it to become more welcoming.

How am I supposed to do this again? Any tidbits would be welcome.  Thank you!

Quick Little Tour

Three weeks are complete and I'm sure you can relate when I say that I'm tired...  so very tired... I took these pictures weeks ago and then promptly forgot about sharing.  So here's a walk through of some of my favorite classroom areas.  

 The metal can is holding all the glow stick lanyards for this year's group of kids.  

For team points, I'm using glass mason jars.  They still make the loud sound when marbles are dropped inside.   

Here is my back wall - it houses our SS board, Grammar, Writing, and Student Work.  I changed up three boards this year to add in a lot more dark gray.  I absolutely love it.  

This is our information wall.  I took down the paper job list, and instead all the jobs are on the white/green apples on the wreath.  

This is our mini reading wall.  Over here I keep a lot of the different tools I use for our reading instruction.  

Here's an up close took at our SS wall.  Pocket chart will hold vocabulary and biography cards.

 Our superheroes still had to stay for our grammar wall.  

 The Writing wall is one of my favorites.  The chart paper now has our rainbow edit reminders.

I took down the bright colored background and went with black.

 Our lightbox is a favorite.  Once again the cord stopped working, but the battery option is working great.  We turn it on every afternoon during silent reading.  

Can't forget about my Whole Class Writing Journals.  This year I printed off the colors on bright card stock (4 per page) since my colored ink printer was being wacky.  I then stapled them onto regular folders.  Instead of spiral notebooks this year the kids are adding a piece of binder paper inside the folder when they write in it.

  

I added burlap to a lot of my classroom.  I feel like an adult with that addition.  :)  

Hope this helps!  Have a great day!  

Back to School in a Flash: Decor and More

2 days people... 2 days... Tuesday morning the kids come!  

Today's assignment is to show off my classroom.  I still have a few random projects to complete Monday afternoon, so today I wanted to share some of my absolute favorite areas of my room.

I love using card stock as backing.  My student work wall is one of my absolute favorites.  Each student has their own spot with their student number underneath, and it's easy to see who still needs to finish their work.  This wall changes on a weekly basis.  The card stock is laminated this year...  One of my "projects" is to add a large paperclip to the top of each of the sheets so it's easy to slide papers on and off.

I love using fabric on my walls.  Twin sheets can cover a lot of space!  The actual walls are pretty gross, so the calming colors really are relaxing.  The fabric definitely helps me to LOVE my classroom (ha ha).  The easiest way for me to put up fabric/sheets is to use pushpins on the top of the wall to hold it in place, then cut it to the correct length, staple starting at the top, then adding the border afterward.     

Large open floor space makes me happy.  I have 2 areas on either side of the room that are perfect to sit as a class, work during workshop centers, read during silent reading... 

My storage containers are so helpful to keep things in their right places.  The black ones (top picture) hold my ELA and Math standard task cards - sorted by area.  The large drawers have my projects sorted by trimester.  The other black 3 drawer containers have our class set of thesaurus, spelling activities, fluency pages, social studies/science connections, and ELA workshop options.  In the white drawers I have "Rowley" math facts pages, flashcards, math fact activities, and then manipulatives we use all the time.  

I hope you were able to get some ideas!  Share your classroom by adding a blog post to the below linky!  

An InLinkz Link-up

Life in the Classroom {Giveaway and Donors Choose}

I love my classroom.  I really do.  It makes me happy.  So much blue and green on the walls that calms my soul.  I realized the other day that I don't know if I ever really showed you a picture of my classroom since the very beginning of school.  Well here are 2 overviews of the room.  It's not a perfect picture, goodness I just realized that one of my kid's whiteboard rags is on the floor... but that's life, right?  

Things I love about this room:

*The colors - the blue and green fabric have lasted for years, and they still make me happy.

*The space - I can arrange the desks in so many ways.

*The 3 drawer storage drawers that line the side and back of my room.  I bought the Sterilite containers over a few summers, but now I'm so organized.  The kids know exactly where to put things back and where to find things. 

*Room for a carpet area - The ability to sit as a group on the ground.

I love so much about the room itself, and that's not even including all the kiddos that I get to work with every day.  

Over on FB, I'm having a giveaway.  Just find the post with my classroom picture, and leave a picture of your own classroom in the comments.  I'll choose a random classroom on Thursday afternoon at 5pm, and the winner can choose whatever task card or research set that he or she wants from my store.  

I'm also looking for help funding my Donor's Choose project.  I just created a new one last night - a class set of Boogie Boards, and this week all donations can be matched by Disney by using the promo code DISNEY.  Please consider helping my class, and get a tax write off in the process!  

Thank you!

Summer is Over {Bulletin Boards}

Summer flew too fast this year.  Meetings started yesterday, and Monday will bring the kids.  I think I'm physically ready, I know the classroom bulletin boards are.  Don't mind the other mess, I'm still trying to finish up.  

Here's what is done.

Walking into the room, our Student Work Wall is the first thing you'll run into.  I like having a spot for each student to hang their work.  I like using student numbers so it's easy to know who still hasn't turned it in.  This bulletin board changes on a weekly basis.  

Right next to the work wall is now our Word Wall.  Most of my bulletin boards are interactive, meaning that things are added throughout the weeks and over the course of the year.  The word wall will house the different academic vocabulary we learn during our daily Wonderful Words Meeting.  Yes, I know I still have to lug in water for the water cooler.  :)

Between the Word Wall and this VOICES board is a small blue board that eventually will hang student faces - The FACE of a Reader.  The VOICES board is our main writing wall.  It's moved since last year.  VOICES stands for Voice, Organization, Ideas, Conventions, Excellent Vocabulary, and Sentence Fluency.  Under the letters (that came from Ladybug Teacher Files), I have written main points of each category.  During the first few weeks of school we have different mini lessons that bring them to life.  That white anchor chart holds the beginnings of Rainbow Edit.  The kids will fill that in later on too.

On the other side of the classroom we have our classroom library and our Reading Board.  The colored paper will house anchor charts for FACE (also from Ladybug Teacher Files).  We will have more mini lessons as we go over the strategies (Fluency, Accuracy, Comprehension, and Expanding Vocabulary).  FACE is simply just CAFE from the Daily 5.  Those blue cups are Marzano's Thinking Clouds from Tonya's Treats for Teachers and the yellow pocket chart is Prove It: Citing Evidence Cards from Joanne Miller.

Under the whiteboard I have Superhero Parts of Speech.  I love these cards, they are so cheerful.  Since we work with grammar everyday it was important to have them up.  I grabbed them years ago from Scholastic using their bonus points.

On the other side of the whiteboard we have 4 little pocket charts to hold our main weekly vocabulary cards.  One for Reading, Math, Science, and Social Studies.

I moved my information board to this side of the classroom since my desk is now over here.  My old eyes can't see the calendar from across the room.  :)  Also on the whiteboard is my behavior chart, rules, and helper cards.

I now also have a Data Board.  It will contain our class averages for our assessments.  I want us to see how we are improving as a class.  We will also have the standards we are currently working on.

You can probably tell that I use a lot of fabric on my walls.  Some are sheets (which are thick and needed to be put up with pushpins), some are just normal fabric from the clearance rack.  I love how the colors are so calming, they make me happy.  The tops of the boards all have paper borders, but for the bottom I use wide navy ribbon.  The ribbon doesn't get wrecked when kids lean on them while sitting on the floor.  You can probably also tell that I love pocket charts.  It makes it so easy to just drop in an index card, or a student exit slip, or a vocabulary or standard card.  I'll show off all my pockets charts in another post since I'm realizing I forgot to snap some pictures.  Another day...

This week is flying by and I'm not done with my to do list and to get mentally prepared for the big task of new technology, new math curriculum, and new standards. Back to laminating, copying, lesson planning, cutting out contact paper for name tags, and updating my Back to School Powerpoint.  So much for a relaxing weekend...

Hope you have had a great week!