Classroom Pictures 2

Before I posted a couple pictures of my new classroom when I was still moving in and getting set up. In the last two weeks my projector was set up and my round table and rolling chair arrived. Since the original pictures, my custodian also put up rain gutter shelving for me. Now my classroom is complete! I love it so much.

 

This is what my writing menu looks like. I have a chart for each of the traits on our state's writing rubric. We have been adding areas of the rubric as we discuss them in class, especially with topics that come up with our Everyday Editing lessons. We started out with paragraphs, so that is why there is more on the organization chart than the other areas right now.

I am still not convinced that this is the best set up, but for now it is functional. I know a lot of teachers dedicate a bulletin board for their literacy menus; however, I created these posters because I wanted something that would work year after year with the flexibility to add on strategies and later remove them, as well as something that I can flip depending on the language week. It is essential to me to have the target language represented on the walls in most cases. At the start of the year this was the best way I could think of creating them, but we will see how it evolves over time or if I end up using the same model. Either way, I love having literacy menus!

 

This is my new round table - another component that I am loving. When our custodian first brought it in to the room I was surprised at how "small" it was. I was shocked when I realized that I could sit with seven of my students and still have some room to spare. It will be a great addition to our room. I also used it when having one on one writing conferences, and it is an additional area for partner/small group work for social studies. Today we had the room set up for our feudalism simulation, so I was able to have a group of students sit at the table since their desks were already set up as the throne and castle for the simulation.

The sentence strip chart on the wall is used for our small group word sorts. I also have all of my word study supplies set out on the counter in the corner or in the cupboard for easy access and organization.

 

Here is how my Smart Board and white board ended up. It has been so nice to have them side-by-side at the front of the room. The writing menu is on the left, and the reading menu is on the right. I also just got my map switched over to my new room.

 

Here are the rain gutter book shelves. It was a great addition to our classroom library set-up. Last year I did not like having my forward facing books on the regular book shelf, and this was the perfect solution. I may add another row later if needed, but they actually each hold a lot of books. You can also see the blinds that I just got last week. They will come in handy on sunny days when we want to use the Smart Board.

The charts on the wall were adapted from this Two Writing Teachers blog post, and I also posted the information on our classroom blog in our writer's handbook.

Update

The year is flying by. This week we will already have our fall conferences. Granted they are earlier than usual, I am still shocked the time is here.

Today I went into my classroom, and it felt great to have a very productive afternoon. I was able to do some minor adjustments in my room that I have wanted to do for a while but have not gotten to with the end of the day rush during the regular week. For example, I turned my desk slightly so that it is at an angle rather than straight. I have been administering running records at my desk this year, and it has been working out really well. However, I wanted to have my desk at an angle so it would be a little bit more confidential.

Another mini make-over was cleaning out one of my new cupboards in the back corner and turning the cupboard and shelf above it into my word study station. I have all of my supplies in one place, and it will run much smoother and feel less chaotic. This year I am trying to manage more different groups than last year, and I have not had a regular 5 day English week yet since I implemented the different groups, so it is even more hectic trying to make the multiple groups work on less days. However, tomorrow will start the second week on the rotation, and I have high hopes that the reorganization as well as deciding to do a second group during writer's workshop when necessary will make all the difference.

Reading workshop is going the smoothest out of all the components in my classroom. Today I was reflecting that it should not surprise me since reading is the area where I feel the most comfortable, have the most background, and was able to set up most of the foundation for what I am doing now in previous years. It feels like this is going to be the celebration year when everything clicks together.

While not as smooth as reading workshop, writing workshop is also going well. There are many areas that I am adjusting and reflecting on, but I realized that this is the first year that I have really implemented a full on writer's workshop. Last year I attempted, but it was more of bits and pieces without having it be a consistent presence. Thus, there are some kinks along the way as I find myself making more notes about what I should have done to make the process run smoother. Nonetheless, the fact that I am able to get the workshop up and running and know that it will be a constant component in the classroom is reason enough to feel a sense of accomplishment. Each year it will just get better.

This week I received a curriculum kit from Teachers' Curriculum Institute (TCI) for social studies. I first heard about the program in Sarah Cooper's Making History Mine. Originally I was not going to have a commercially prepared program, but I met with my director to express my concerns of having a hard time finding sufficient resources to address the concepts on our 7th grade curriculum map (such as medieval Europe and the renaissance). I was thrilled to received the materials, and I am so excited to start using them tomorrow. I have heard feedback from a few different people saying that the curriculum changed them as teacher. I am most excited about all of the interactive activities and that they have an interactive notebook, so it will be perfect since this year is my first attempt at using INs. I will still continue to have students create pages in our class created INs, rather than switching to the program INs because I like the idea of still creating our own to specifically meet the needs of our classroom. However, I will use many of the ideas from TCI.

Today I was also able to program some more classroom blog posts. My projector has not arrived yet, and I will not really use the blog on a consistent basis until I am able to show it to students on the Smart Board, but it still feels good to start getting different posts up, beginning to establish a valuable resource for my students.

Whew! A month into the year I am still caught up in a whirlwind of activity. However, little by little I am getting more pieces in place, and with each piece an overall better sense of calmness. I still have not been able to cut out weekends, but I am hoping to do so shortly or to limit myself to a few hours.

Classroom Pictures

Here are some pictures of what my classroom looked like the morning that I was able to move into it. The last is a picture of what my room looked like on the first day of school. The boxes in the entry way were luckily my desks, so they were set up by the second day of school. I will have to post updated pictures once everything comes in and it is set up for the year. Now I am mainly just waiting for my projector to come in. Then I will put up my Smart Board, white board, and my writing menu. I love the way the layout of my room is working out. Here's the post where I mentioned my plans.

 

 

 

Last Days of Vacation

I made sure to take the last days of my official summer vacation off. Today the girls went to a craft camp, and I got my hair cut. Then we spent the rest of the day together. Tomorrow I also plan on spending the day with them.

Then Friday I will move in to my new classroom. Luckily a group of people have already blocked out time in their morning to help me move my boxes over. When I was in earlier this week they were adding on the final touches. There is now electrical access for student laptops and they put in all the ceiling tiles. It looked like my projector also arrived, and if so, it will probably be installed when I get there on Friday. Everything is so beautiful, and I am very excited for the students to see it. I will post pictures once I get settled in.

I am still waiting for some minor details, such as my teacher desk, computer, whiteboard, Smart Board, and student desks to arrive. Other than that (ha ha) I am all ready to get started on setting up my classroom. I remember this time last year everything started to come in on a regular basis, and even though I was getting anxious wondering whether or not it would arrive in time, the essentials were there for the first day. I am not going to worry about it this year. Even if everything is not here for the start of school, I will adjust. For example, if my Smart Board is not in, I will just wait to incorporate components such as the blog and I will use traditional chart paper instead of using my computer and the projector for writing and reading workshop.

My years of teaching experience have taught me to be flexible, go with the flow, and do the best I can with what I have. I am looking forward to a great year!

It's almost time...

...to move into my new classroom
...for my official first day back
...for students to arrive
...for so much to begin!

I can hardly believe the 09-10 school year is almost here. I have spent quite a bit of time this summer preparing, yet it never seems quite enough. There is always so much more that I want to do. Yesterday when I was looking at my to-do list and thinking about how there was only a little bit of time left before the official start date, I prioritized my to-do list. I also reminded myself that everything does not happen at once. I thought about all my vision of what I want my classroom to look and feel like next year and what is realistic to implement right now versus what I would love to do now but can wait until a little bit into the school year. I would not have to wait until a whole new year, but I can put it on my to-do list with a goal to start at different points of the year to layer in different pieces.

I front-loaded my planning with curriculum - mapping out my yearly plan and getting all the details ready for the first weeks. Soon my focus will turn to moving in to my beautiful new classroom. I love everything about it. I can hardly go to the school without at least peeking in the windows or walking in to see the latest progress in my room. Last night I was locking the building up and it looks like it is almost to a point where I will be able to move in. It seems like everything is ready (they just finished up the carpets), except they still need to put in more ceiling tiles and finish up the electricity access from the ceiling that students will use for their laptop computers. Then of course my actual classroom furniture needs to arrive. Regardless, it is getting super close and I am so excited for the students to see the new room.

It's Getting Closer...

The realization hit my teaching partner and I earlier this week that we really do not have that much time until school starts. We go back to school on August 14th, so we are just about a month away from our official return.

While my girls were at a craft camp for a few hours today, I met at the school with my teaching partner to complete a few items on our to-do list that we needed to do together. This evening we went shopping for a few school supplies, including binders that we will use to keep our anecdotal notes and student data. I will be using some ideas from The CAFE Book to help organize mine.

Friday we will get together again to try to complete our team to-do list before both working independently off an on before the back to school rush begins. This year especially I am going to try to have as much as my curriculum ready to go before our return, knowing that I will want to spend a lot of my energy getting settled into my new classroom. It is coming right along. This week they painted, and I am really excited about how my accent wall turned out (it is a dark blue). I can't wait to move in and share some pictures.

Thank You Debbie Diller

Earlier this spring I read and thoroughly enjoyed Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places. I had already been reflecting on how I wanted my new classroom to be set up and the book gave me more ideas to consider. Lately I realized just how handy it was. Because of her suggestion to create a classroom map on paper (which I had done previously) with sticky notes (a new idea for me) I jumped at the chance to enlarge the section with my room off of the floor plans. I made a few copies for future reference and set to work with my sticky notes.

Luckily, my director has let me go see my room throughout the stages of construction so that I could see it visually. I realized that my first idea of how I was going to place my student desks was not going to work because it was too narrow. However, since I had used Diller's post-it idea, I was able to quickly rearrange the desks in a new way. This way I did not have to sacrifice the vision of my room having a meeting area at the front by my computer and the Smart Board to facilitate integrating technology in with my reader's and writer's workshop.

Pre-planning is vital in my situation because once I make decisions having to do with some of the pieces of technology I will be locked in to certain configurations. For example, once they put in data drops from the ceilings, the desks will have to be arranged in those areas. Thus Diller's post-it planning has been an essential piece at making sure that I was able to allow a classroom set-up that will help me to implement ideal teaching practices.

Once I had my plan my director and I were able to go into the room and mark up where I wanted certain components with chalk. For example, we allocated the space for my teacher desk, Smart Board, white board, and pods of student desks. This will help make sure that data ports and phone lines are set up according to how I want my room to be. I was lucky that my director was so creative in giving suggestions with my plan. She pointed out areas that I overlooked and suggested we draw an arc around the room so that my pods of desks would be aligned.

I can't wait for my classroom to be ready. It changes so much day to day. I feel so lucky to have this unique opportunity to be able to have a brand new classroom and to give so much input.

Wall Quotes

Recently I was back home since my sisters were visiting my parents' house. We stopped by a local coffee shop, and I loved how they had quotes around the shop. Some were on boards, and others were directly on the wall. I asked the owner where they got them, and she said they were through Upper Case Living.

I know that I want to have some quotes on the wall this year, and if I have them custom made through Upper Case Living they will definitely look better then if I just print them out and mount them on colorful paper. There is also a mom at our school who made signs for everyone's door with similar stick on lettering, so I will check in with her first as well to see if she has any ideas.

I would love to have the following quotes on my wall:

"Reading is breathing in. Writing is breathing out." -Lester Laminack
(I saw this quote on Stella's blog.)

El niño aprende a leer leyendo y a escribir escribiendo.
(This translates to: A child learns to read by reading and to write by writing. I cannot find who the quote is attributed to, but I heard it a lot in Mexico when talking to teachers.)

Read like a writer and write like a reader.
(This is another one that I hear a lot, but I am not sure if it is attributed to someone specific. If you know, I would love for you to leave a comment.)

If I want to put the quotes directly on the wall I would need to get permission, but at least they can be removed. Otherwise, I could have them mounted on boards.

Whole Class Meeting Area

This year one of the main things that I wanted to change about my classroom layout was to have my Smart Board be a part of my whole group meeting area. However, because of various set components of the room, such as lockers, electricity and computer installations in the floor, and the mounted projector, I was not able to make that happen this year. When I wanted the whole class to gather around the Smart Board for modelling writing or to watch a video, some students were sitting on the floor while others were at desks, and it was not the same feeling as when we had whole group activities at the carpet.

In my new classroom I already requested from my director to leave space in front of the Smart Board for a whole class meeting area before putting in the laptop hook-ups, and she said that I will be able to decide where I want them. I am lucky that Debbie Diller gave me so many ideas in Spaces & Places on how to plan with a step by step process of which components to start with so that I can get it right the first time since once certain components are installed, I will not be able to change my mind.

The Smart Board is on the floor plans as being in the front and center of my classroom, so I am hoping that it will work out to have a small table/computer stand off to the side, a white board on the other side, and a carpet in front. That way I would have flexibility with whole class meetings. I could easily model writing and create anchor charts. Students would all have clear visibility with close proximity. I am very excited about the possibilities of my classroom layout working for me in terms of being able to utilize technology to the best advantage. Ideally, I will also be able to get a document camera to have by my computer to further enhance instruction.

One area that I was concerned about was the students not having accessibility to anchor charts done electronically. I was trying to think of a way to have them at their fingertips even when they are not on the Smart Board. This year for part of the year we had a drive on the network where I could put documents that my students could access. However, part way through the year this stopped working. Franki at A Year of Reading recently started a conversation about SmartBoards and reading and writing workshops. I noticed that one of the commenters, Monica, mentioned having a classroom blog where she puts a lot of information that she used to put on chart paper. This would be perfect because my students have laptop access and this could be the perfect solution. This also opens up possibilities for students and parents who have Internet access at home.

Recently I have seen other teachers' classroom blogs such as Stacey at Two Writing Teachers' blog. I had also wanted my students to start blogging, so the classroom blog could serve many more purposes than just a place to store anchor chart/whole class discussion information. I will have to get familiar with Scribd to be able to post Office documents. I noticed that is what Stacey uses a lot. I have also heard of Google Docs, but I am not sure how that works either. At least I know there is a way to make it possible and I have the summer to figure it out!

I have always loved floor plans and organizing. Since my classroom will not be ready until right before school I will have fun mapping out plans on paper over the summer.

Spaces & Places

I was so excited to get Spaces & Places: Designing Classrooms for Literacy by Debbie Diller in the mail this week. Yesterday was my last day of school with students, and although I am looking forward to rest and relaxation over the break, I am already so excited about next year. The gears are already turning in full swing. One area of excitement is that I will be getting a new classroom. Our school purchased two buildings last year and renovated the first one. The second one will be the middle school portion of the school, and next year they will be able to do the first phase of remodeling, including my new classroom. Thus, it was perfect timing to get the book.

I kept a pen close by as I was reading to make a list of ideas. Now I am tossing around ideas such as whether or not I want a teacher desk - something I had never even considered not having before. Yet, Diller's suggestion of saving space by having a table serve as small group meeting area during student contact time and teacher desk in the after hours makes sense.

I am going to take Diller's idea of mapping out a classroom plan on paper using sticky notes. I mapped out my room last year, but had not thought about using sticky notes instead of drawing the same floor plan over and over with different configurations. I feel even luckier because I can just copy my classroom off the contractor's floor plans, which will already have all of the permanent fixtures marked. Then I can play around with different classroom components.

Another area for excitement is that with a growing school we will have to purchase new classroom furiture. Whereas any other year I would not be able to give suggestions for classroom furniture as a whole, this year I can. I want to process the information, skim over the wonderful color pictures again and then meet with my director while it is still early enough to influence the type of furniture for my classroom.

I will be posting lateron throughout the summer with ideas on how I want to set up my room. I also went back and skimmed A Year of Reading's blog to find posts from the beginning of the school year about Trading Spaces, some fun posts that complement the book well (1, 2, 3, and 4).