First glimpse of classroom pictures (cue lights! cue sound!) - Keep in mind that while I have come far from where I started when I walked in yesterday, I still have quite a bit left to do...
One of my first tasks was to take out everything from the shelves, chuck what I am not planning to use (slash, what would just accumulating dust), and reorganize the cabinet. As you can see, there are many PD & religious books (as well as DVDs) stashed away in this area of the classroom:
The next four pictures are of the front of my classroom, creating our prayer space:
Funny story about the corkboard, actually - I didn't realize how thin it was, so when I tried to use push pins, they wouldn't hold (or would poke (with effort) into the wall). Bummed, I almost took down the large piece, when I had an epiphany - Use the smaller pieces that I had just bought at Target to make some of the board double thick. Voila! It worked. (At least, I hope it's still hanging up tomorrow...and in the days to come...)
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| I had to make directions - bottom line, be careful when posting! |
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Prayer "table" with multiple books and sacramentals.
The empty vase will *hopefully* hold fresh flowers on a regular basis... |
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| Oh hey, Pope Francis...and Holy Land postcards |
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Getting the kiddos thinking (and using my religious Tweets book).
I also love the fact that I was bequeathed a frog hall pass. <3 |
After a year of minimal use (due to being solely the religion teacher last year) - sadness! - it was time to actually fix up and label my classroom library. We'll see how long those books stay sorted. I even made a section of Miss Foyle's Favs to advertise some of my favorite novels and classic literature.
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| Of course there's a Sharon Creech section. I think all her novels are in that bucket... |
I broke down and bought a new CD player this year (because last year the one I had broke). I had to strategically move the pencil sharpener too - I don't have too many extra desks to play around with this year because I'll have 22 kiddos in my homeroom. Woo hoo!
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| And, if you look closely, there are Piglet and Anne (of Green Gables) snuggled nicely next to the lamp. |
As any teacher will tell you, organization is essential, so I will do my best this year to stay on top of that (both for me and for my students), and I will also work to stay as de-cluttered as possible (especially my teacher desk)...
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| Crates for archiving student notes and assessments - 2 bins for each class! |
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| Group seating material boxes. Crossing my fingers that they last! |
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| glue & tape (for interactive notebooks), spare pens & pencils, a pencil sharpener, a highlighter, some scissors, Y/N spoons, & post-its - the idea is to minimize unnecessary movement and to help them be responsible for returning items at the end of each class... |
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| Every computer station is "armed" with a stuffed animal and a pair of headphones. |
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So many teacher & prayer books, so little time...
I love my frog collection, dolphin, and Olaf! |
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| Reminders (and inspiration) hanging above my teacher bookshelf |
Yep, that's most of it for now. I have yet to group the desks, but I plan to put my carpet up near the SMARTBoard so to be better able to conduct mini lessons (mostly for my 6th grade ELA class) and create a better sense of classroom community. (Plus, it's right by the prayer table, so maybe we can better utilize that this year.)
Tomorrow is pretty much a full day in our classrooms after breakfast and a brief orientation with the full staff first thing in the morning, so I look forward to being mostly done with classroom set-up by roughly 3:32 tomorrow afternoon.
(And one last plug - for those of you Catholics reading this blog, remember to go to Mass for the wonderful Marian feast of the Assumption. Mary, our mother, pray for us!)
