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!  

First Week Lesson Plans

My first week almost always looks the same as past years.  A little tweak here and there, but mainly the same concepts - building a class community through a bunch of team building activities, learning about student work habits and personalities, and of course a lot of practice of routines, rules, and expectations.

Please don't judge my handwriting... :) Here are my main go to activities/read alouds for my 4th grade classroom.  Many of these ideas can be used in multiple grade levels. 

Read Alouds:

*Have You Filled a Bucket (My intro. into our rules)

*First Day Jitters (Mentor Text for First Week)

*G is for Golden 

(CA History Intro.)

*7 Habits of Happy Kids (I read one habit per day the first 2 weeks of school, then we brainstorm how we can model that behavior.)

Team Building Activities

*Save Fred (teamwork with a partner - involves gummy worms, peach rings, paper clips, and plastic cups)

*Puzzle Races (teamwork with a small group using small boxes of puzzles)

*Fourth Day of Fourth Grade (teamwork with a small group, centers practice)

Math Activities

*Find Someone Who

*Math About Me

*Practice MATH Workshop Routine

(Not full speed, practice rules/expectations, one station per day)

M= Math Facts

A = At Seat

T = Teacher Time (I save this until later on)

H = Hands On 

Writing Activities

*Welcome Booklet (Great filler for those first days of school)

*Set Up our Grammar Notebook

(Mentor Sentences, Word of the Day, Parts of Speech)

*I am Poem (I hang these up as an easy bulletin board for BTSN)

*Heart Map (What do they love?  Great look into what's important to them, and then we put into our classwork folder for quick write options)

*Start Mentor Sentences

Reading Activities

*Set up our Reading Notebook

(Genres, Strategies, Themes)

*Start my version of Daily 5

(IPICK lesson, What does Read to Self look like, What does Read to Someone look like)

It's a busy week, but a memorable one.  :)  I hope this helped someone.  In case you haven't heard, today and tomorrow there is a TPT Best Year Ever Teacher Appreciation Sale going on.  My store is also on sale, including all the bundles, and you can get an additional 10% off with the code BESTYEAR.  :)

Have a great day!