Information Overload

As our professional days at school begin and we get closer and closer to the first day of school, I am flooding every available brain cell with as much as I can.  As a Professional Learning Community, we are reading two books as a school: Guiding Readers and Writers by Fountas and Pinnell and Strategies that Work by Harvey and Goudvis.  While the Fountas & Pinnell book is geared towards grades 3-5 teachers, it's helpful for the entire faculty to be in the loop.

The school division is adopting a new math series that I need to read up on, along with the existing series for Social Studies and Science.

I also began rereading my copy of Literacy Work Stations: Making Stations that Work! by Debbie Diller.  As I read, I remembered how long it takes to model and practice to perfection the appropriate behavior and learning that should be taking place at each work station.  Debbie Diller references another book (maybe Fountas and Pinnell) where they say that the first six weeks of literacy work stations in the kindergarten classroom should be practicing, modeling, and teacher observation.  While it seems like a really long time,  I know that investing the time to model and practice to perfection is well worth it!

 I plan on blogging about the classroom progress for our literacy work stations as my new friends and I learn together.  One of the centers that I include (and that Debbie Diller mentions in her book) is the ABC/Word Language Study work station.  This work station can include flash cards, alphabet games, plastic letters, Scrabble tiles and more!  I got some really great alphabet stickers from the Target Dollar Spot and decided to try sticking them to some stones that I had (these may or may not have been in a fish tank at one time).  I'm so excited to show my friends and build words together with these "letter stones."

What unique things have you placed in your ABC/Word Language Study work station?  I'm always looking for new ideas!

Traveling Nachos

Yummmm.... gross.  So, in elementary school, one of our school lunch choices was called "Traveling Nachos."  What it amounted to was ground taco beef scooped into a single serving bag of Doritos.  The food was actually tasty, but when you think about the name and the concept= very gross.

At my old school, the students had one choice.  At my new school there are 5 choices.  Students can have a salad on Wednesdays, yogurt or a peanut butter sandwich any day, or the other prepared options.  I knew that my kindergarten friends would need to make a choice daily, so I began formulating my plan for operation "lunch choice."

I began browsing pinterest and found this lunch choice board from Mrs. Wright.  I liked the concept and I'm all about using magnets and velcro!  I just didn't know how quickly my kindergarten friends would pick up on having a classroom "number."

A really nice first grade teacher at my new school was going through her room and was giving away things she no longer needed.  I was lucky to receive a 30 count set of these little "Chefs."  They came in a 30 count tub.  When I got them, I hadn't finished formulating my lunch choice plan.  I chose to sleep on it and came up with a plan in my dreams!

When I was organizing my room, I found several things that would eventually use to create my lunch choice area.  I found the lunch tray in my room, whipped out my hot glue gun to attach the 5 clear cups, and added velcro to each cup.  When I was organizing the "stuff" in my room, I found the yellow file box of all of the lunch choices, sorted in little folders with velcro already on the back of each card!  I also found the numbered pocket chart.  I pulled out my gold paint pen (every classy teacher needs a little bling in her repertoire) and numbered the back of each Chef.  

When I get my roster, I will be making new labels for the pocket chart.  Each label will include a student's name and a corresponding number.  My little friends will be able to make their lunch choice daily and I will be able to tell which little Chef belongs to which little kindergarten friend.

Bulletin Boards: the nemesis of every teacher

When I was a student, I loved bulletin boards!  When my second grade teacher let us help put them up, we were so lucky!  As a student teacher, I was eager to offer to put up bulletin boards for my cooperating teacher.  As a first year teacher, I happily put up my first classroom bulletin boards.  Now in my sixth year... bulletin boards are on the bottom of my "fun" list.  Why this change of heart?  Well, it all goes back to my lack of spacial awareness.  You have to be certain to get enough bulletin board paper to cover the entire board twice.  After trotting back and forth from the workroom where bulletin board paper is kept, you begin to lose a little bit of your soul.  How many times does it take before you rip off the perfect amount of paper?

Okay, back to positive thinking.  In order to make my bulletin boards stay up all year, I don't put up thematic boards.  Each of my boards has a purpose and my kindergarten friends will use the boards daily.  While arranging the furniture, I began putting up notes on each bulletin board.  I wanted my Word Wall to be on a long bulletin board that was visible to all students.  I needed a spot for our Classroom Behavior stuff and a LOT of space for morning meeting/ calendar time.

This bulletin board is located next to the coatracks directly beside the classroom door.  I like to keep my bus information near the door in a very obvious spot.  My mother always told me that during the first week of school if every child got on the right bus, you had a successful day.  So, if I'm ever not in the room at dismissal time, I want my substitute to easily be able to find bus information.  We haven't gotten our rosters yet, so when I get transportation information, that will be posted.

You'll notice my classroom management system is sharing the bulletin board space with transportation information.  I found the 5 bee promises while perusing pinterest.  Sarah Cooley of First Grader At Last is to receive the credit for this great manage system!  I am so excited about moving to a management system that doesn't require me to scrounge up treats for my treats box.  Let's reward positive and appropriate behavior with fun and free incentives!

My calendar area takes up 2 bulletin boards.  Located to the left of my calendar is an overhead sheet with the 100s chart, a hundreds, tens, and ones pocket chart, and a copy of the September poem from Maurice Sendak's Chicken Noodle Soup with Rice.  Why are these things included with my calendar?  Counting up to day 100 is a big deal in Kindergarten and we will color in a square for each day of school on our hundreds chart.  We will put a stick in the ones pocket for each day of school (and eventually move them to the tens and hundreds pocket).  I like to use the Chicken Noodle Soup with Rice monthly poems because it gives the students a daily opportunity to see the "ch" blend in action.  

This is part deux of my calendar/morning meeting area.  It includes a spot for the days of the week where we talk about yesterday, today, and tomorrow, a daily attendance area, and a weather spot. The daily attendance is a relatively new part of my calendar.  Each morning, each student will get a unifix cube.  As we begin our morning at the carpet in a circle, we will count together as we connect each unifix cube.  We will save the cubes for the students who are not present and make sure that they are represented and we will compare our final rod of unifix cubes with the rod with our total number of students.  The weather section will include making observations and graphing those daily observations.  I'm thinking about including daily temperature- what do you think?

In the background of this shot, you can see my Word Wall.  I found this great wrapping paper for a $1 in the Target Dollar Spot.  One of my friends (Gale) had turned me on to finding wrapping paper as an bulletin board paper.  It has changed my life!  Cheaper than fabric and offers more to the eye than the plain old paper. This roll of wrapping paper has a pattern using blue and white lines and is a great subtle background.  The black letters (made on my mother's Cricut machine with the Plantin Schoolhouse cartridge) contrast nicely with the paper.  

With Organization Comes Clarity

I'm not sure about you, but when I walked into each of my classrooms (I've had 3 in 6 years), I've been overwhelmed.  Just like any good reality organization show, I follow the practice of making piles.  There's always a "keep" pile, a "donate" pile, and a "toss" pile (aka trashcan).  But before I begin organizing the stuff, I like to develop a sense of order by arranging the furniture.

My first day in my classroom was spent shuffling furniture from one spot to the next.  My spacial awareness is somewhat... lacking.  Knowing that, I brought a yard stick and a tape measure and I borrowed some "moving men" from the teacher next door.  The "moving men" are made out of felt and are discs that can be placed under each corner of heavy furniture.  My new kindergarten teammates kept offering to help me move furniture, but I really had no idea where each piece of furniture would eventually end up.

Here is the view from my classroom door.  My student tables are front and center, in a kind of windmill arrangement.  Behind the student tables are 2 bookshelves that used to be connected to each other.  The bookshelf  facing the student tables will hold math manipulatives and the bookshelf to the left (hard to see in this photo) will hold materials for small group literacy centers (stamps, word games, leap frog, leveled readers, and more).  These bookshelves act as a barrier in front of my small group table.  I've never put up a divider like this in the room.  I usually like full disclosure- a nice, open classroom where I can see what everyone is doing at every minute of every day.  I've tested it out and from my spot at the small group table, I can see the entire classroom.  

Here is the view from the teacher desk.  You can see my small group table.  The bookshelf to the left of the dolly is where all of my small group literacy items will be stored.  In the top left of this photo, you can see the five drawer storage cabinet.  This will be a great spot to hide those posters and all of the various types of paper.

This is the view from the morning meeting/calendar time area of the room.  Not much to say here...

Earlier I mentioned that my first step is arranging the furniture.  As you can see in my photos, the second step is pulling out everything that's hiding in drawers, cabinets, and closets and sorting.  This is when those three piles (keep, donate, toss) come in handy.  I went through all of the manipulatives, reading materials, art materials, and miscellaneous items that were in the classroom and sorted.  All of my reading items went on the small group table, all of the math items went on a student table, etc.  

When thinking about organization, it helps to see everything you have... and boy am I blessed with a lot of stuff!  Just by looking at the piles, you might think that this was a blog about a hoarder.    Don't worry.  Like I always tell my husband, it always looks worse before it gets better.

New School Year, New Classroom, New Friends

My family has recently relocated.  There, I said it.  It's a lot easier to say that to actually do it.  If I was making an anchor chart of things you have to do when you move, I'd need a whole pack of chart paper.  Let's see... find a job, find somewhere to live (but you might want to do this AFTER you find a job), find new doctors, find childcare for Sydney Boo... this doesn't even touch the whole "packing and moving" aspect of relocating.

Teachers have a built in time in the calendar year for such a transition= Summer Vacation.  I couldn't imagine relocating without 3 months of downtime (which isn't much like downtime when you're relocating).  Okay, let's focus on the positive things... I am so thankful for summer vacation.  It really made relocating much easier.

Things have settled down and we are taking care of each of those items on our "Relocating" anchor chart.  I have been moving into my new kindergarten classroom and new school district during the past week.  Two days were spent at a new teacher institute.  I can say that this time was actually very helpful, even though I've been teaching for 5 years.  This school district gave training on the curriculum currently in place in their county.

The rest of the week gave me time to work in my classroom.  When I walked in, I found a very clean classroom.  This hasn't always been my experience, so I came prepared with cleaning supplies.  I still had some sprucing up to do, but the custodial staff had really done a nice job in my room this summer.  Here are my before shots:

  This view is from the classroom door.  Check out the super sweet blue walls!  I LOVE them!  (The tables in this photo are not the tables I ended up keeping.)  Notice the plethora of furniture!

Here's the the view from the back corner of the room.  The little door on the left leads to our private bathroom (holla!) with the sink being located just outside of the door.  I have two coatracks, 4 bulletin boards, 1 kidney table, 1 teacher desk, 4 student tables and some bonus furniture!  

I'd also like to say "thank you" to the room's previous occupants for leaving the number line and 2 alphabet strips posted.  Those are probably my least favorite thing to put up, so I'm grateful that I don't have to this year!

So this is the classroom, a very cool blue, with lots of great furniture.  Stay tuned as I explore the contents of the classroom, start to get organized, and make it a learner's delight.