I started this blog at the beginning of the school year as a way to document some of my more creative ideas, and to sort of "give back" since I feel like I just take and take and take other teachers' ideas off the internet! I'm not sure if anyone is actually taking the ideas I'm putting out there, but at least I've eased my conscious a little bit! :)
Last month, I received some incredibly exciting news... I had applied for a fourth grade classroom position, and I GOT IT!!! I am staying with the same school, but I am moving out of the suburbs and to our campus in East Memphis. I am beyond excited about this. I have some great friends who teach there (I'm not even going to think about the great friends that I am leaving... nope, too sad, can't think about it) and I am ready for the change in environment. I have felt called to move out of the 'burbs and into the city, and I am so thankful that God has allowed me to do so while staying within the same school community.
Of course, my summer got a lot busier! I am SO overwhelmed with the amount of planning and organization that I have ahead of me! Due to other obligations this summer (VBS, family vacation, mission trip, etc.) I haven't had much time in my classroom. Here's what it looks like right now:
I added a nice Instagram filter to make it look cooler :) Actually, it looks worse than this now; after I took this picture, I started pulling stuff out of my closet, so now it looks like an Office Depot exploded on top of the desks. But look! Look at my awesome Smart board! Look at the laptop cart! Woo-hoo!!!
Here is my to-do list for next week... oh boy... maybe I'll make that the next two weeks!
- find cute fabric and start making curtains and table skirts (I started this, but I couldn't find any fabric I liked. I went to three stores! Unfortunately, I had already decided in my mind what I wanted, and apparently no one makes that fabric.)
- once I find my dream fabric, take a trip to Knowledge Tree to pick out coordinating bulletin board trim, cute lettering, motivational wall posters, etc.
- arrange the furniture
- finish cleaning out and organizing the closet
- search for a new desk chair (it's not in the photo, but you should see my olive green pleather chair. I think it was a prop from the set of Welcome Back, Kotter)
- inventory my classroom library and decide on an organization system
You may have already decided on an organization system for your library, but something I did when I was teaching was use those colored dot stickers (like the ones for garage sales you can buy @ Walmart).
ReplyDeleteEach color represented a different "level" of reading. I introduced the system to the students the first few weeks of class and it made it very easy for them to choose books at the appropriate level on their own. It also made it easy when they advanced to a new reading level...they just moved "up" to the next color.