Classroom Tour 2015

Hey everyone! I am back (after not posting for over a month!) to finally give the classroom reveal for this year. I stuck with my theme from last year of colors and chalk. I kept a few of my bee theme decorations as well because they were just too cute to take down!

Here is a {#onemonthtoolate #ohwell #betterlatethannever} tour of my classroom!!! Enjoy.

Here you can see the tables where my students do their seat work as well as their individual book baggies (from reallygoodstuff, you can find them here). The scroll on the whiteboard will be used for our classroom rules when the kids have helped create, draft, and publish them. I like to keep them in a really accessible and visible place so that we can refer back to them often. To the right of the whiteboard is my daily schedule visual and the classroom jobs chart. To the left is our word wall-- I add our sight words each week as we cover them. 

Our book baggies! Labeled with student numbers (so that I do not have to slave away erasing names/changing out name tags every year).

Our behavior clip chart which I got here from Elizabeth at Kickin' It In Kindergarten. I decided to start using this chart because I liked that it is simple and clear. I also use numbers instead of names on this chart to avoid drawing negative attention to students who need a little reminder :)

On the focus wall, I post weekly sight words and vocabulary words, our current math concepts, and our weekly spelling lists.  

Our classroom library area is a multipurpose space. It is also the circle area for most of our whole group learning and the meeting place for our Responsive Classroom morning meeting. As another component to Responsive Classroom, I write a morning message on the chart each day. Students interact with the message when they arrive by answering a question at the bottom or writing a response. 

Listening center and storage of our other literacy centers. Our word work, spelling, and write the room centers are in the 3 drawers on the right. I use the 3 on the left for "finished early" activities. Students know they can open the drawer and choose from3 or 4 activities when  they finish work early. 

The small group reading/math area. This is where I do my guided reading lessons and math intervention/extension. I keep the supplies (leveled readers, word work activities, white boards) behind the desk chair in several plastic bins (which did not make it into this picture!). My math tubs are the 4 blue boxes on the shelf to the left. We rotate through these 4 math stations each week. One of the math tubs is an activity done with the teacher. This allows a time for me to do small group math intervention and target specific skills for students who need support. 

Our writing center. Students are given academic choice in terms of their writing topic. The small cards hanging on the O ring are from Denise at SunnyDaysinSecondGrade! You can get them here.  She has really cute and fun writing prompts for each month of the school year. They include a variety of fiction, non-fiction, how-to, letters, poetry, and more. My kids love them! I usually give them 2 choices for "have to" writing. If they finish this early, they can choose any topic they'd like from the task cards. I change them out every month! 

I hope you enjoyed the tour! 

Reading at Home: My new incentive chart this year!

Well...With just 2 small weeks until the start of school, I have broken into my classroom and started setting things up and getting it ready for my new kiddos! Many of my classroom management systems from last year have stayed, but there were a few that I knew I wanted to change this summer (usually because I didn't like how they worked last year).

One thing I am changing this year is the way I keep track of students' reading progress with their home reading assignments. My 2nd graders are assigned 20 min. of reading at home each night and are given a new Reading Log every month for  a parent to write down what they read, how many minutes, and circle whether it was read to self, read to them, or read with a parent. I like to see what my kids are choosing to read at home because it lets me know what types of books interest them and also whether they're reading at all! Their faces light up when I ask them about the book they've been reading at home and they love to tell me all about it!

Last year, I gave my students 1 sticker for every 100 minutes read at home (one week of 20 min per night). By the end of the year, {most} had a bee hive chart full of stickers and were proud to take it home. There was no reward...and surprisingly, just the act of putting the sticker onto the chart each week when I checked their log was reward enough! They loved it. This year, I am just plain tired of using stickers...and I happened to have this adorable tree pocket chart that was unused!

I decided to use the pocket tree as a level-up system for my readers! Every 100 minutes read at home, students earn a bookworm (so.cute.) and move their bird up one more branch! They get a nice visual of how much reading they have done throughout the year and can really feel proud about their hard work. I am loving it! We'll see how it goes. Do you have other ideas for tracking the reading your students do at home? I'd love to hear about them in the comments!

Back to School Prep and Desk Helper/Name Tag Freebie!

Well...it's August! Which means every day feels like a Sunday from now until the ACTUAL first day of school! Where does the time go, people?! I know many teachers will be going back to school in the next week or so, but here in New York, we usually don't begin until early September. So I still have time. However,  I am of course planning, preparing, and getting excited (in a way) for the first day of school!

One change I am making this year is an update to my desk name tags. I made them myself last year and they worked out well except that they were not multitasking as much as they could be. They simply had the students' name and a print alphabet. Simple is good, but I found throughout the year that I was adding things to my kids' desks because I wanted them to have more visual reminders! I added a cursive writing helper, a few math visuals, and I often had to bring out the number lines for kids who needed them! I know that you can buy desk helper with all of these things...but what's the fun in that!? They aren't even cute! See my new and improved desk helpers and name tags below and click HERE to download and print your own for free! I apologize, but they are not editable. You will need to hand write the names after you laminate the tags :)

Another change i'll be making is going back to keeping those pesky name tags on the desktops. Last year, I tried keeping them on the back of student chairs with velcro. It was nice because they were removable if a student needed to look at them, but not a distraction during lessons. Now that my kids will be using them more as a math/writing visual, I think I will go back to just taping them using packing tape. I know there will be picking, peeling, and sticky dirty spots on the desk (yuck)...but I have yet to come up with a better solution yet!  I'll keep you posted on that one. Any suggestions?

What updates and changes are you making to your classroom this year? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!