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Showing posts with label charts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label charts. Show all posts

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Classroom Tour

Alrighty... I know the year is almost over, but I figured it's better late than never. First off, I have a very oddly shaped room. I have lots of windows (which is great, but...), two sets of white boards, and built in cabinets, etc. that I can use which is great. I realized while writing this post that there aren't any pictures of my kiddos desks, but I'll take some next week.

This is part of my writing wall. I have laminated construction paper stapled to the wall with each kid's picture on a star on the corner. I put two paper clips on the top of each sheet of paper to hold their projects. Each time we have a new published piece of writing, I replace their work. It's quick and easy to switch out, and I fold their papers in half and file them away for the end of the year. At the end of the year, I will bind all of their writing together to make a book and put their star pictures on the front. These are from our Valentine's Day writing activity where I had a variety of different hearts and they could create anything they wanted with them. They're so cute, right?

The other part of our Writing Wall. Check out those monitors... Old School!

Here is one set of our Daily 5 book bins and binder storage. With 29 kids, it's been great having their book bins spread out around the classroom so that when they go to get them, we have fewer traffic jams.

Clipboard storage is a corner with push-pins. Plus our camouflaged butterflies from our "Butterfly Hunt."


This is one set of white boards. It is used strictly for a district-mandated daily test prep strategy called Board Math. You can also see a glimpse of the rest of my math wall and my small group table.

These are my reading group binders. I have so many levels of readers in my class that my groups meet every other day. I use this organizer to keep everything close to our meeting spot.

Here is the view of my back wall. There's a lot goin' on!

This is our classroom storage supply area. It's pretty simple, and I used my Cricut to cut out letters for the boxes.

Workbook and textbook storage in my built-ins. We don't use them much, so I like to keep them out of my kiddos hands. You can also see a small glimpse of my (dreadfully sad) library. I have wonderful books, but my organization is embarrassing. Year two will be much better, I promise.

Another grouping of book bins and binder storage above the textbook storage.

Our word wall. You can download the letters I made here.

This is our Welcome Wall. I have our attendance chart, behavior chart, and class jobs all printed on vinyl (basically, giant stickers). I don't have a lot of kid-accessible wall space, so using the board this way worked out perfectly. Here's how we use it:

Attendance and question of the day. Names are all on magnets and super easy to use. Any leftover names are my kiddos that are absent. No calling names and we get to learn a little about one another.

Behavior chart. Stars are also on magnets and kid-friendly.

I love these schedule cards from Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade. I have them on magnets so that they're easy to move around and times are easy to change. 

Class Jobs: numbers are on laminated construction paper and on magnets.

Our focus wall with labels from One Extra Degree. Those circle magnets are all from IKEA and they are AWESOME! I also use Mighty Minis from The Container Store that are wonderful and take up very little space.

My front wall. TaDa! It's a little busy, but it seems to work. And behind those boards and in the cabinets is all glorious storage! 

My favorite item on the entire board is that orange on the middle board. It is a Bloom's Taxonomy Helpful Verbs poster. I LOVE IT. It is really helpful when I write my objectives and need a quick Bloom's refresher. 

If you're wondering what my desk is like, you can head over here and check it out. Believe it or not, it stays like this! I am so proud of that fact.

Hope you enjoyed my little tour!





Saturday, January 21, 2012

Family Math

Finding a teaching job in Southern California right out of a credential program is not an easy task.  Many of my friends and classmates were successful in securing jobs in the area, but many had to wait until the very last minute (2 days before school started!!) to hear back from schools, and I HAD to get to work.  I was lucky enough to land a job in Northern California right after I graduated in August and had a whopping 14 days to move into my new home and classroom. My husband and I moved to a new city on a whim and I wish I could say things are fabulous, but the truth is, I miss my family and friends. I do my best to keep in contact by calling, texting and doing the facebook thing, but sometimes it just isn't enough. I have been using personal story-telling (with an occasional exaggeration) to keep interest high and the kids love it. Plus, I get to remind myself how lucky I am to have such wonderful people in my life.  One thing that has emerged from this practice is what I have dubbed "Family Math."

It serves two wonderful purposes: I get to tell funny, mostly true stories about my family and the kids get really excited about math problems.  This is our most recent chart and they were really concerned with the task of finding the correct number of horseshoes for Morgan's horses.  They even asked me if she knew we were going to figure it out for her, so I actually texted her during our lesson to make sure she knew :).  It's also really fun to share pictures of our charts with my family and friends so that they know I'm thinking about them.  Win/win! 

Sunday, January 15, 2012

Charts, charts, and more charts!

We chart a lot in my class.  It is a great way to document student thinking and it has really helped my class to take ownership of their learning and our space.  We chart everything from reading comprehension strategies to math facts and everything in between.  I was lucky enough to have a few amazing mentor teachers in my Credential Program.  They introduced me to Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning and it has been an amazing tool for me. I was able to learn the art of charting from two wonderful first grade teachers. Things are a little different in third grade, but we LOVE to chart in my class!  Here are a few of our charts from this year.

"Charting holds thinking--it makes our thinking public and permanent, and traces our work together." - Debbie Miller, 2002

Schema Umbrella Chart

The Napping House Connections and Schema

Don't Need Friends Connections and Schema

My lil' Bucket Fillers!

Problem-solving

Non-fiction Text Features (a Pinterest find!)

Plurals --> Changing y to ies

States of Matter

Caribou Schema

Parts of a Letter

MY NEW CARPET!!  (Just had to sneak it in...)

I think they like it!