This is my new management system! One of my teammates from last year also decided to use owls this year and found this beauty. She copied it for both of us and I can't wait to use it!
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Getting Down to the Wire
We're almost down to a week of summer break left and I love setting up my classroom. Here's a few pictures of my favorite things for you to see!
This is my new management system! One of my teammates from last year also decided to use owls this year and found this beauty. She copied it for both of us and I can't wait to use it!
A new reading comprehension poster I found on Pinterest. I finally got around to making it and can't wait to use this as well. It breaks down the story line into the most important aspects that the kids can remember to summarize quickly.
New birthday calendar: (red and blue class names are written in their respective colors)
Cute listening poster I found on Pinterest...again!
And finally...my bulletin board!!!! :) I LOVE how it turned out. Each little owl has the students' names and the color of the class they are in. As I went to put it up I found out that I'm missing the 'r' in "hooray" and I lost the exclamation points. I'll recut those this weekend and put them up next week.
This is my new management system! One of my teammates from last year also decided to use owls this year and found this beauty. She copied it for both of us and I can't wait to use it!
Saturday, June 16, 2012
A Few Hours Later
Yesterday I spent about 5 hours in my new room and got quite a bit done. Here are some pictures and a 360 degree video. Enjoy!
The board with the leaves will be for the student of the week.
The board with the leaves will be for the student of the week.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
A Blank Slate
Here are some pictures of my NEW classroom before any decorations are up (I tried to do a 360 arial):
I can't wait to get started!!!
When you first walk in there is this little counter with cupboards.
The back right corner
I can't wait to get started!!!
'Owl' have a blast making these this summer!
So I saw this great idea on pinterest the other day. A teacher had made owls with each student's name on it for the beginning of the year and put them on her door. I decided to do that as well and just got these little guys done. Aren't they so adorable????
They are taking me quite a while but I hope to get them finished tonight do I can laminate them tomorrow at the district ISC.
They are taking me quite a while but I hope to get them finished tonight do I can laminate them tomorrow at the district ISC.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Summertime and my LONG Book List!
It has been so nice this last week to get away and visit with family. I've truly enjoyed my little vacation. I stopped by the Clutter-Free Classroom blog the other day and read about their Summer Reading Contest. I've already started on a lot of my fun reads for the summer. I've got such a long list of books that my little 4th graders wanted me to read so I had to get started right away. Just yesterday I finished the Percy Jackson Series and I LOVED it (yes - I have only been out of school for a week and have finished all 5 books)! So much adventure with a little mystery thrown in. My guilty reading pleasure is definitely children's fiction! I can't get enough of it (definitely still a little kid at heart). Here's a few more books that are on my to-do list this summer:
1. "Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins (my roommate and two students have been after me about reading these)
2. "Lockdown" by Traci Hunter Abramson
3. "Inkheart" Series by Cornelia Funke
4. "Fablehaven" series by Brandon Mull
5. "The Beyonders" by Brandon Mull
6. "Uglies" by Scott Westerfield
7. "Miles To Go" by Richard Paul Evans
8. "39 Clues" Series
9. "Seven Daughters and Seven Sons" by Barbara Cohen
10. "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Spear
These are just the beginning....And as far as professional development goes, I'd also like to look into "Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product" by Gail Tompkins. Hopefully this will help me get some ideas to strengthen my writing for next year!
1. "Hunger Games" series by Suzanne Collins (my roommate and two students have been after me about reading these)
2. "Lockdown" by Traci Hunter Abramson
4. "Fablehaven" series by Brandon Mull
5. "The Beyonders" by Brandon Mull
6. "Uglies" by Scott Westerfield
7. "Miles To Go" by Richard Paul Evans
8. "39 Clues" Series
9. "Seven Daughters and Seven Sons" by Barbara Cohen
10. "The Witch of Blackbird Pond" by Elizabeth George Spear
These are just the beginning....And as far as professional development goes, I'd also like to look into "Teaching Writing: Balancing Process and Product" by Gail Tompkins. Hopefully this will help me get some ideas to strengthen my writing for next year!
Saturday, May 12, 2012
We have to wear shades
I decided that our class should update the bulletin board at least 1 more time before the end of the year. I wanted something easy and decided on the theme "Our Future's So Bright, We Have to Wear Shades". I got the class some cheap sunglasses from online and we took pictures to go out on the board. They also were in charge of writing just a little sentence about what they want to be when they grow up. It was so much fun to see them pose with the glasses. Here's a few of their pictures:
Aren't they just silly?! We also made a few fun things in art the last two weeks. Both ideas are from Pinterest so I can't claim credit for them. The first is called "Cool Hands Warm Hearts". I got the idea from this great blogger. She used oil pastels to color them in but we didn't have much time so we just stuck with crayons. Nothing too exciting, but it made for a great Mother's Day gift! Here's how mine turned out.
And for the week before, we did another fun art project. My roommate found this idea on Pinterest and showed me so we both ended up doing it with our classes. They turned out great and were tons of fun. I keep finding these all over my room cause they can't stop making them :) The original idea came from here but here's what mine look like.
Aren't they just silly?! We also made a few fun things in art the last two weeks. Both ideas are from Pinterest so I can't claim credit for them. The first is called "Cool Hands Warm Hearts". I got the idea from this great blogger. She used oil pastels to color them in but we didn't have much time so we just stuck with crayons. Nothing too exciting, but it made for a great Mother's Day gift! Here's how mine turned out.
And for the week before, we did another fun art project. My roommate found this idea on Pinterest and showed me so we both ended up doing it with our classes. They turned out great and were tons of fun. I keep finding these all over my room cause they can't stop making them :) The original idea came from here but here's what mine look like.
One more thing before I go. I previously posted about my student who wore a flamingo hat on our Career Day. And how he told me he wanted to be a flamingo. Well, we had a Beach Day about a month ago and he wore the silly hat again. This time, I was smart enough to snap a picture of it so I could share it with all of you. Her name is apparently "Doris" and he purposely stood sideways so that I could see her head in the picture.
What a silly class I have. I'm going to be so sad to see them move on in just 3 WEEKS! How did the end get here so fast?!
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Coming to a Close
This morning I realized that we only have 4 weeks left of school. I can't' believe that in a month, I may never see some of these kids again. They are definitely feeling the end of the year because they've started to go NUTS! It takes everything in me to not go ballistic everyday. Although it seems like I do a lot more yelling these days. The end of this week was a little more controlled because they finally realized that I was serious in my rantings. I took away probably close to 25 Bee Bucks in the last two days alone and right before our class auction.
I don't think I ever shared on here that I had my interview with Michele! We met on a Friday after school about 2 weeks ago and she asked me a few questions. Then she called references and within about 2 hours, she came back to my room to officially offer me the position! I will now be teaching 3rd grade at Southland in the Chinese Immersion program. My roommate and fellow intern, Jessica, speaks Chinese and has been hired as the 3rd grade Chinese teacher. So we will be working together again next year. Jessica is only allowed to talk with the students in Chinese, so a lot of the responsibility of management and discipline will fall back on me. She is also teaching math, science, and social studies completely in Chinese. I will be teaching some of the vocab to go along with that but mostly, I will focus on the language arts (i.e. reading, writing, spelling). There are two classes and so we will switch groups halfway through the day which means that while I have 1/2 the planning, I will have twice as many students. Because of the intensity of the program, there can be no new students added to our classes which means we already know who will be in our class and can start planning for numbers. Its looking like about 40-41 students that we will share next year.
On Thursday this week, I met with Joy, Jennifer, and Michele to have my final Exit interview for my internship. They averaged my scores from the whole year and out of 5 my score was a 4.5 from Joy and a 4.6 from Jennifer. Not bad! They also both wrote letters of recommendation that I can use when looking for future employment. After that meeting, I went to another meeting but this one was with the 2nd grade Chinese Immersion english teacher. She gave me some insight into how things work, how to do the switching of classes, tips on how to handle certain things and was able to answer a lot of my questions. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed because I had absolutely no idea where to start planning for next year but I'm way excited now. This is a completely different kind of planning than I had to do for this last year because now I have some very specific requirements and have to do everything in tandem with another teacher. It will be an interesting experience, but I'm glad that I'm doing this with Jessica. We both work well together and we are new enough teachers that one can't boss the other around and dominant the partnership.
I'm looking forward to the many new adventures ahead of me! Wish me luck!
P.S. Here's a look into a few things I'm hoping to do next year in my classroom. I'm thinking I might do an OWL theme. Still not 100% sure but I'm really liking it at this point.
O - Outstanding
W - Wise
L - Learner
Check out my Pinterest page to see some of the great things I've found! http://pinterest.com/beckaw/classroom-ideas/
I don't think I ever shared on here that I had my interview with Michele! We met on a Friday after school about 2 weeks ago and she asked me a few questions. Then she called references and within about 2 hours, she came back to my room to officially offer me the position! I will now be teaching 3rd grade at Southland in the Chinese Immersion program. My roommate and fellow intern, Jessica, speaks Chinese and has been hired as the 3rd grade Chinese teacher. So we will be working together again next year. Jessica is only allowed to talk with the students in Chinese, so a lot of the responsibility of management and discipline will fall back on me. She is also teaching math, science, and social studies completely in Chinese. I will be teaching some of the vocab to go along with that but mostly, I will focus on the language arts (i.e. reading, writing, spelling). There are two classes and so we will switch groups halfway through the day which means that while I have 1/2 the planning, I will have twice as many students. Because of the intensity of the program, there can be no new students added to our classes which means we already know who will be in our class and can start planning for numbers. Its looking like about 40-41 students that we will share next year.
On Thursday this week, I met with Joy, Jennifer, and Michele to have my final Exit interview for my internship. They averaged my scores from the whole year and out of 5 my score was a 4.5 from Joy and a 4.6 from Jennifer. Not bad! They also both wrote letters of recommendation that I can use when looking for future employment. After that meeting, I went to another meeting but this one was with the 2nd grade Chinese Immersion english teacher. She gave me some insight into how things work, how to do the switching of classes, tips on how to handle certain things and was able to answer a lot of my questions. I was feeling pretty overwhelmed because I had absolutely no idea where to start planning for next year but I'm way excited now. This is a completely different kind of planning than I had to do for this last year because now I have some very specific requirements and have to do everything in tandem with another teacher. It will be an interesting experience, but I'm glad that I'm doing this with Jessica. We both work well together and we are new enough teachers that one can't boss the other around and dominant the partnership.
I'm looking forward to the many new adventures ahead of me! Wish me luck!
P.S. Here's a look into a few things I'm hoping to do next year in my classroom. I'm thinking I might do an OWL theme. Still not 100% sure but I'm really liking it at this point.
O - Outstanding
W - Wise
L - Learner
Check out my Pinterest page to see some of the great things I've found! http://pinterest.com/beckaw/classroom-ideas/
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