What I have done

Wow, I cannot believe that it has been this long since I last posted something here. Since the 31st of July I have been very busy getting my classroom ready, meeting with other 5th grade teachers about math, language arts and science, and working in my room. On August 1st, I packed up my old classroom in anticipation of the August 2nd moving day. I spent 4 hours emptying cabinets, drawers, purging files, and packing up my library. On August 2nd, I opened up my new room and had several friends help me move. Because of my knee replacements, it is hard for me to go up and down steps carrying boxes. Luckily, I got to use the elevator for the move. After the boxes and tubs were brought upstairs, I started organizing the room. One of the things that we were warned about was that we could have 30 students next year, so I had to rearrange the room to accommodate 30 desks (and do centers). On Thursday, Lauren and I are going to send a letter to our new students (well, my students from last year and a few new ones). They are also going to have an assignment to do. Here is a picture of the letter and assignment. Today I spent the day meeting with 5th grade math teachers and we planned for the first two weeks of school. That was a mind-boggling experience. I haven't taught math in four years, and now it is at a new grade level to boot, with new standards (Common Core). Here are links to the Wikis and Live Binders that I made over the summer: This is a repository of ideas for the upcoming year including the first and second day activities, goal setting and technology ideas, and the open house presentation. Language Arts Wiki Writing Page on the Language Arts Wiki Ecosystems Wiki Math Wiki (started, just got the map on 8/14) Reader's Workshop/Writers Workshop Introduction Space Wiki (just started) Pinterest Boards Classroom ideas Open House/conferences Writing Technology Math Science Language Arts Classroom Theme Ideas Live Binders: Reading Science Technology Audio Books Online Misc Teaching Ideas Pictures of my new room:

Another productive day - I even got some stuff packed into the car to take to school tomorrow, and the moving cart. So I should be ready for tomorrow. These are the Objective Frames that I made - again got the idea from Pinterest. My plan is to put them on the front board and the use sentence strips or dry erase marker to write the day's I Can statements.

I hope that you can see these from the back of the room. If not I'll take them apart and back the letters in black or just outline them with a black marker. This is the data folder that I made. This is going to be a big deal this year. I really have to keep up with them and make sure that the kids know how important they are. I can also use them during conferences.

So I am getting there!

Today's goal - find stuff for the data notebooks. I did the folder idea from Pinterest. It turned out well, but had to cut the duct tape. But it worked! Now I need to find papers for the inside. More later.

Okay, today has been a busy day. I think I worked on school stuff all day long. With of course a few breaks to cheer on team USA in London. I finished up the vocabulary decks for Lauren and I today. I ran out of 3x5 cards, but know that I have lots more at school, so I will use a day at school to put cards in those. Here is a picture.

I had this idea last spring and don't know if it will work, but I sure hope it will. Giving the kids one place for their vocabulary words will help keep them organized. They can use them to study with a partner. I also used an idea from Pinterest to make a classroom mail area. I don't have a lot of free space in my classroom, and I didn't know what to about mail. It was always a mess to hand out papers. I was so excited when I saw this idea that I ran out to Target to get the crate, file folders and hanging files. I used the Cricut to make the letters. I love this!

This will look so good in my room. I am so tired of being disorganized and this will certainly help out. The kids will like putting the mail in the folders. I was also thinking that the kids could take home their folder on Friday's. Just a thought. Here is a photo of a writing idea (again from Pinterest). I plan on infusing a lot of writing into Language Arts this year. One of the activities at the writing center will be to write at least one page in a class book once a week. The prompt is taped to the outside of the binder and there will be paper inside. As time goes by, I'd like to have them go through the writing process with their stories.

Finally, I wanted all the students to have a 3-ring binder for language arts. I know that this isn't on the school supply list, so I got 30 binders, card stock, dividers, and labels. I cut the card stock to fit the front and spine, put the label on the front for identification purposes, cut cardstock for dividers (premade ones were to expensive) and put on the tabs. Thank goodness I have done a lot of scrapbooking! I had lots of tools to help with the cutting and labeling.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the objectives frames, and what I hope will be the class motto.

Today I worked on the online classroom and a Prezi about learning styles. I want to introduce kids to learning styles and get them to think about how they learn. One of my goals this year is to get them to learn to be responsible for their own learning and their behavior.

Okay, so I updated my online classroom home page and even got the Prezi to show up on it (thank you U Akron Master's Degree). Now I need to work on that QRI thing for Open House. I am excited to learn how to do that. I have to finish my first day lesson plans. I want to do the goal setting in the afternoon and then take their pictures and make the poster. I may have to wait a few days to make the poster since all my kiddos won't be there the first day. I also want to go to Wal Mart to see if they have more paper for the vocabulary books. There might need to be a trip to Office Max for the rings. Here is the link to the Prezi:

Today I am meeting with Penny and I am going to work on the Open House Prezi. I figured out how to make it in 3D. It is pretty awesome. I will post a link here. I do have a long list of things I want to do this week. There is making the QR(?) code for outside mine and Lauren's door for open house found this idea on Pinterest and think it will be cool.