Tree in Progess

Well, the vision of having a tree in my classroom is starting to become a reality. Thanks mostly to my younger sister. Think I could do this on my own? Ha!

We still have a few more of the 3-D branches to add, but because they were a pain to hang from the ceiling, I'm thinking about making our classroom tree a positive behavior "chart". For good classroom behavior, we can "Make our Classroom Tree Grow!" I'm not quite sure how it would work yet...What would it take to grow another branch onto our tree? Just something I'm thinking about, it may never come to fruition.

 I still have more work to do (and shopping, I need more vines), but here it is so far!

Reading, Writing, and Smeckens, Oh my!

Last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, I was trapped in the Valparaiso University Union. Trapped by my own volition (and wallet for that matter).

Wednesday I attended Kristina Smecken's Launching the Writer's Workshop Workshop. It was phenomenal! The school I work at has been using the Smecken's program to teach writing for a few years now, and I felt it was time to bite the bullet and learn the program for myself. Last year when I taught fourth grade, I had amazing teaching partners, one of which is a Smecken's expert. Working with her, I was spoiled. She told me how and when to roll out each mini lesson and gave me a scope and sequence of what I should teach and when. This year as a fifth grade teacher, I have equally as awesome teacher partners, however, they do not collaborate as much. After attending the Smecken's writing workshop, I feel confident that I will be able to teach writing and more on my own as a fifth grade teacher!

Thursday and Friday of last week, I attended Kristi McCullough's two day reading workshop. She is a literacy consultant through Smecken's and just as engaging as her writing counterpart Kristina Smeckens. A lot of what we learned during the two day workshop, I had already been doing. This made me feel a few things, one being, "Yay! I actually did something right last year!" another, "WOW! These ideas are so much better than what I did last year!" Overall, the workshop was very helpful! Throughout a large portion of the workshop, I was thinking to myself, "I am so glad I implemented the Daily 5 last school year!" Kristi speaks very highly of "The Two Sisters", the authors of The Daily 5, in terms of the procedures/routines they put into place to make the 90 minute reading block is successful. Having implemented Daily 5 routines into my classroom last year, I think (hope) this year will go a little more smoothly, now that I have some tricks up my sleeve!

If you ever get the opportunity to attend ANY of the Smeckens Workshops, TAKE IT! Whether an administrator approaches you or you see that a Smeckens workshop will be in your area and its up to you to pay for it, do it! It's absolutely worth it!

Owl-riffic Bulletin Boards

Yes, I said "Owl-riffic". Typically I'm not into the cutsey classroom decorations (hence the overhaul of my classroom theme), however I do use the term "Owl-riffic" on my writing traits board.

These bulletin boards look barren right now, but that is because we add to them together as a class. I have read extensively about creating the content of your boards/anchor charts WITH students. When you create these as a class, students are more likely to utilize them in their own learning.

Owl of the Week Board. I will choose my owl of the week based on students who have been contributing to the classroom community in various ways. Maybe I caught a student being a good friend, studying for a difficult test, or challenging themselves academically; For any of those reasons a student could be chosen as Owl of the Week. Students then get to decorate a poster all about themselves and bring in a shoe box bio with small items that are important to them.

Here is my writing traits bulletin board. Currently it looks pretty blank. That is because as I introduce the six traits, we add to the board together so that everything is written in "kid" language. At the beginning of the school year, my classroom looks pretty bare, but we need plenty of wall space for all of the charts and posters we create together as a class!

Organizing Table Groups

Each table group in my classroom has a "tower" next to it. In the "towers" students keep their personal art supplies, test taking tents, and any books they can not fit into their desks. Last year, I had big plans to make each tower a little prettier. Did I do that? No. It was not a priority. This year still not a priority, however, yet here I am, decorating towers in my classroom.

A fake sunflower, green pencil holder, and yellow basket have made their homes on each of the classroom towers. The only difference between each tower is that on each yellow basket I have put a different type of owl. That way I'll be able to call each table group by their owl name. Notice I tied this bow on the outside of the basket, you don't want to know how many times I had to try this.

Classroom Library: During

Here they are, the empty shelves that will become my new and improved classroom library. I love how they are built into the wall (I think they are a part of the radiator?), because I don't feel like they are taking up a lot of space.

Here are the book baskets that will live on the classroom library shelves. I bought the baskets in brown and green, and went with yellow labels/ribbon. I really like how they turned out. I would like to reiterate how non-crafty I am, even this was a challenge.

This is about 70% finished. I filled up the rest of the shelves with book baskets. Some baskets do not have labels on them yet because I forgot about some of my genres and my school doesn't have a color printer, so tomorrow morning before I go back in, I have some printing to do. My dad is building more shelves for me that will fit underneath the chalk board in the classroom library. I can not wait until this all comes together and is finished!

Classroom Library: Before

Behind these shelves lives an ancient chalk board (its magnetic, which is more than I can say for my other chalk boards), I will be using it during reading mini lessons.

Here they are, the shelves I fear will crush a child. They are out! Now, where exactly they are going, I'm not quite sure (its surprisingly hard to get rid of furniture), but I don't care, I need them gone!

I have to admit, I am a little embarrassed to show this picture, not just because of the shaky shelves, but because of my lack of library. Of course I know how important it is to have a phenomenal classroom library. I read about it all throughout college, I am lectured about it at professional development, and I read up on it in education books, but I have a secret weapon....my school librarian. OK, she may not be a secret, but she's the greatest. If I shoot her an email letting her know the genre or topic we are studying, she shows up to our classroom with an entire cart full of books! Students enjoy this because they love leafing through the new books every two weeks or so.

These built in shelves are what will become my classroom library tomorrow. I invested in book baskets from Really Good Stuff, so that I can organize my library by genre.

This is a picture facing the back of the classroom. Classroom library/guided reading corner.

By Sunday afternoon, this will look completely different! I can not wait!

Classroom Mascot

Harold. 

Meet Harold. Our classroom's newest member. He will spend his day watching us from the classroom garden on the window sill. Welcome Harold.