So here we are on a little walk down memory lane. Check out my very first classroom - a 2nd grade, inclusion, self-contained classroom in a small-town, Title 1 school. It's fun to look and see how far we've come, but it's still hard to own some of the silly decisions along the way. I take solace in the fact this room was set up in, literally, one day. Some elements of the room were held on to for later years, while lots of things I lived and learned from.
My very first look inside my classroom
A few hours later... a few pops of color and not much else!
Oh man, look at that walk space between the tables! Thankfully I figured out quickly
that this was NOT a good desk arrangement. You live and you learn, right?
Doesn't that bulletin board hurt your eyes a little? A parent of one of my patients at the ABA clinic I worked at previous to deciding to come back to traditional public school worked in the paint department. I asked if he could donate paint chips to my classroom (hoping to use them for word work), and he very generously gave me whole a box! Of course I had to try and put them to use.
Our classroom rabbit, Bentley. I was able to help fund him for the class through a pet grant.
Very cute, right? Also fairly smelly unless the cage was completely cleaned daily.
The 2nd graders sure loved him, though!
I put down numbered duct tape to help space the kids and quickly line up in order even when I called
by table groups. This worked super well, and in fact, the teacher that moved into my classroom (I went
up to fourth - YAY!) still has that in place two years later!
Those were actually "bulletin boards" I fixed up by hot gluing (tsk, tsk) it all right on the wall.
The room needed to be repainted badly, and I just had to cover some of the eyesores up.
Guided reading table
I never did use that transportation list. My school requires the teachers to walk the students to
their buses at dismissal, so we had a daily laminated checklist we turned in each day.
(Is there anyone else out there that has a similar dismissal procedure, by the way?
I remember it seeming very strange and inefficient when I was hired!)
My makeshift classroom mailboxes. I actually still have these - they held up unbelievably well!
Thanks to a fellow teacher blogger: my pencil hospital. Nice solution to the ever-dreaded pencil
dilemma. There were a few days when I (and my little helpers) forgot to sharpen, though,
and our classroom pencil sharpeners just happened to be broken. We ended up getting quite
a bit of use out of fine-tipped markers that day! :)
Highlighting names/student numbers was something I didn't put in place when I moved to fourth grade.
I didn't have problems with "no name" papers previously, and I figured it would just slow down turn-in
unnecessarily. Boy, was I wrong! I missed this system the whole year. If second graders can use it and turn in EVERY assignment labeled with a name, any class can. I've put it on my to-do list for next year.
I had a wall full of windows in my classroom, and I knew I was going to have to use
some space to designate my classroom library. A trip to Michael's and a two big boxes of crayons later,
and I came up with this idea to help define the area.
Classroom library grouped by subjects. The white bins were nonfiction. No time to label!
I "borrowed" the green chair from my youngest son's nursery... and, naturally, it still
resides in my classroom today.
Student desks take up so much less room than computer tables, plus they added storage space.
This room is long and skinny, so proximity areas to the doc cam and board were limited.
The white board behind the computers was used as a word wall.
My "Can We?" card system on the board worked amazingly. I've implemented this into each of
my classrooms since. If you haven't seen anything like this before, you need it in your life!
I put checks on the board to turn "on" things that are allowed at the time. This eliminates
being asked to go to the bathroom at inappropriate times, students knowing when it was okay
to approach me while I was working with other students without seeking permission, if they could
use computers to take AR tests any time they had after finishing their work, when they could work
around the room outside of their desks, and so much more. Most commonly used cards have always
been "collaboration" and "restroom." The biggest perk of this system is that it allows the students to direct
and manage themselves appropriately, helping to create a learner-centered classroom.
My behavior chart - thank you Pinterest. I used mine often (and still do). Students worked to
get clip all the way up until they were above rockstar, or "off the chart." If they kept their clip
"off the chart" (I usually pinned it to my lanyard or earrings), they were able to add a
decoration to their clip the next morning.
And. somehow by the grace of God, I was "ready" for the first day of school!
I hope you found something you liked, or at the very least, something you can chuckle with me about. Talk about bright colors.. yeesh!
