My Classroom...Perfection Not Required

Did you ever wonder why teaching is the only profession where you have to take down and set up your "office" every year? How in the world do other buildings get cleaned without taking everything off the walls, boxing up all the materials, and stacking the furniture against a wall? Hmmm.

Mind-boggling, huh?

Now that school has started and the annual tradition of moving in and redecorating my classroom is complete, I thought I'd share a few pictures to show how it turned out. Keep in mind that my classroom is never "finished," nor is it Pinterest-perfect. The walls look very bare right now, but that's on purpose. My students and I will be adding purposeful decorations such as Anchor Charts and student work throughout the year. Until it's time to take it all down and pack it away again, that is. :)

***Note: I confess to shelving this blog post for awhile. Despite wanting to send a message that our rooms don't have to be "Pinterest-perfect", seeing all the gorgeous classroom pictures all over IG and FB left me feeling a little intimidated. I do like my classroom, though, so I wanted you all to see it. Besides, it's still September -- that qualifies as the beginning of the year, doesn't it? lol

My Math Center

 My Classroom Library and Reading Center

My Social Studies Center

My Word Wall

My Mailboxes and Cubbies

My Classroom

The bare walls are on purpose - My students and I create the anchor charts and produce the work that covers them the rest of the year.

Five for Fraturday - (Not Quite) Ready for a New School Year

Ready or not, here it is! Summer's over and on Monday, I'll greet 21 (or more) freshly minted second graders. This is my 20th school year and I've never yet felt "ready" to begin the year. Such is the nature of teaching. There is always way more to do than I have time to do (no matter how early I start or how many hours I work). After beginning several years feeling anxiety over not being ready, I've found a comfort in making sure I'm "ready enough." 

With that being said, here's this week's Five for Friday...well, since it's Saturday, we'll go with Five for Fraturday. Thank you, Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

Tuesday is the day our district sets aside for in-service opportunities. I signed up for a great one by REAL School Gardens. The half-day workshop focused on using school gardens as an outdoor classroom to teach literacy, math, and science (and some social studies, too). The program sounds great and my colleagues and I will be talking with our principal about getting started at our school. Here are some photos I took during the workshop.

We were invited to explore and discuss bees (dead ones, of course) at our tables. The presenters then threw out several questions and interesting facts about bees.  Did you know they have hair all over their bodies? Even on their eyeballs! Wouldn't second graders love this activity?

We were encouraged to think about what and how we would teach in each part of the garden. Wouldn't this be a great spot to encourage writing about peace?

• Persuasive writing during the planning stage: Why should we have a peace garden? 
• How-to writing during the implementation: How to plant a garden.
• Poetry writing: What does peace mean to you?
• Informational writing: Who was Muhammad Ali?

How else could we use something like this to encourage authentic writing?

The curriculum is structured using the 5 E Model of Instruction. All the activities we explored were based on this model. This is exactly how I love to teach!

The garden was divided into different geographic areas. I love knowing that children are learning about where different plants come from. I can also see doing some lessons on invasive plants. Students could study why some species, like Kudzu, are harmful to native plants.

Do you have a school garden? How do you use it?

On Wednesday, we had a school-based in-service to learn about teaching children who have experienced trauma. Here's a quote that really stuck with me. Sometimes, we punish the behavior without addressing the cause of it.

It was a scramble getting my room ready for our Open House on Thursday. I kept reminding myself that no one would notice the things that weren't done. I worked on getting "ready enough." 

I'll share more pictures of my room later this week, but here's a shot of my math center. I haven't put the header up for my math word wall and there are a few more math tools to put away, but I think it looks pretty good so far.

Books, books, and more books. These somehow made their way onto my front porch this summer.  I have a problem, I know. But don't they look wonderful?!

I don't have a picture for this one. I know some of you are already well into the school year, some, like me, will be starting on Monday, and some are getting ready to start after Labor Day. No matter what stage you're in, I hope all of you have the 

#bestschoolyearever!

Until next time,

Five for Fraturday... and Free Writing Folder Labels!

It's been awhile since I joined the Five for Friday Linky Party. I'm happy to be linking up again with Doodle Bugs Teaching and so many other talented teacher authors.

It's been a busy summer and a very busy week now that it's time to begin getting ready for the school year. Here are some highlights.

I made a feeble attempt this week to join the latest teacher-author craze: video tutorials. I was making my writing folders for this year. I've been creating four-pocket folders for my writing workshop for several years and they really work well, so I thought I could share how I make them.

After multiple attempts to film myself using one hand to do a job that requires two hands, I gave up in disgust. I either need to hire a videographer or stick to using photographs.  

So here are a few photographs to show how to create the folders. I bought a class set of folders with prongs and a class set without prongs.  Putting them together provides students with four pockets that keep their resources, ideas, and writing pieces organized. 

1. Open the prongs on the first folder.

2. Turn the second folder (without prongs)
inside out. The ones I bought were already
hole-punched. If yours aren't, use a three-
hole punch to prepare the folder. Make sure
you punch your holes on the outer edge
of the folder (not on the fold) to avoid step 5.

  

3. Place the inside-out folder on the prongs
of the first folder.

4. Close the prongs.

5. If your holes were on the fold side of the
folder, you will need to secure the inner
folder using tape. Use a box cutter to
make sure the tape does not interfere
with the pocket.

6. Label folders as desired for student use. 

I'm pleased to offer you a free set of my writing folder labels. Please download them by clicking the link. You can print them on Avery labels #5163 or #8253. 

I made my annual visit to the Lakeshore Learning Store. 

I might have gone a little overboard. 

#buyallthethings

Enough said.

My district has officially adopted the Fry Words for word study progression. Once I got the news, I quickly got to work on creating activities for my second graders to practice their word wall words. 

Here's my latest product. It's available in my store.

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Word-Searches-Word-Finds-for-Second-Graders-2730305

Public Domain-US

This is how I felt on Wednesday when I found out that, due to zoning issues, the mobile classroom I will be moving into this year will not arrive until October. I'll be setting up in my old classroom for now, but will have to move once it arrives. 

I have no words. 

Sigh.

I've decided to live in the moment and I'm eagerly preparing my current classroom for my new group of friends.  Here's a record of my progress over the last two days. I'll post some photos of the finished product once I'm ready for Open House next week.

It's coming along.

That's it for this week. I hope everyone's school year is off to a great start.

Until next time,

Five for...Sunday?

It has been such a busy week! I'm joining the linky party a little bit late. Can I have a Five for Friday on a Sunday? Or would that make it a Five for Funday?  In any case, here are my five for this week.

We celebrated my mom's 72nd Birthday last weekend. Or, as the baker wrote on our custom order cake, the 72th. Oops!

My sister and I arranged a mini-family reunion as a birthday surprise. Two of my nieces came up from Florida with three of the great-grandchildren. My brother and niece came over from Tennessee. Mom was surprised and very happy. We spent the weekend hiking, looking through pictures, talking and reminiscing, going to Carowinds, and eating...a LOT!  No wonder I was tired this week.

After three weeks at school and I finally feel like I'm getting finished with the beginning of school stuff. On Monday, we finally finished decorating and filling our book boxes. This is the first time I'm using the cardboard magazine holders from IKEA. I like that the kids are able to decorate the boxes and make them their own. I even put their pictures on the front to make identifying ownership easier. However, I confess that I am a little worried about them lasting the whole year. We'll see. Here are a few of them before I put on the student pictures.

I'm loving my Owl theme this year. I was able to update a lot of areas in my classroom thanks to K's Classroom Kreations. I used her Classroom Decor & Organization: Owl Theme to update my schedule, "I Can" display, word wall, and clock display. Doesn't it look cute?

I've found yet another resource on TPT that makes my life easier. This one is a freebie from Reagan Tunstall.  I printed these Voice Level Charts on blue cardstock and then laminated them. For every activity, I move my magnet to the appropriate chart. If students don't use appropriate volume, I move the magnet to a lower level. If they can't reduce their volume, they lose the privilege to talk and the magnet gets moved to zero. Works like a charm!

We have a large population of English Language Learners at my school. Most of them speak Spanish in their homes. I've found it's helpful to include Spanish translations in much of my classroom decor. Here's a picture of my Color Words in English and Spanish.  After I took this picture, I found out that some of the students use naranja for orange, while others use anaranjado. The kids voted to include both in our display.

Check out my other Bilingual Resources in my TpT store!

That's it for this week. Make sure you check out all of the other great bloggers on the Linky. Thanks always to Doodle Bugs Teaching for hosting!

Until next time,