Full of Excuses: Vocabulary and Spelling Words

YES! I'm full of excuses about not blogging consistently (family, health, classroom, family). I promised myself that blogging would be a reflection of my teaching practices and a journal of my teaching experience. Of course it is also a huge learning experience. I L.O.V.E. it. I especially love it because what I'm about to show you will truly be appreciated only by teachers. Everyone else close to me humors my classroom talk but they don't really get it. 


I've been working on redoing my bulletin boards and maximizing my wall spaced for student learning and student made learning products. 

This board is to the left of my whiteboard. On the right of my white board is the exact same bulletin board. I transformed the "right" one today!

This is my finished product! This wall is for our vocabulary words and spelling words. The blank red paper is an example of what will hang from the "clothesline." Usually all our anchor charts, vocabulary illustrations/definitions etc are created on the size paper. The red pocket chart is for our weekly spelling words. There is one word in their (the rest were in a container so I left them there for now :) The blue pocket chart is for our vocabulary words and task cards etc. In between the red and blue pocket chart are spaces for spelling anchor charts. If I choose to use 8.5" x 11" paper I can hang two, OR I can use the red paper size (I'm having a brain freeze on the size) from the top string under "words."
II had been creating this board in my mind and wondering if it would really come together. It is SO much better than I thought it would be. I love the ease of the paper clips. I love how clean it looks. It is nice and uncluttered. The titles are simply white and pop in my opinion. 

I placed six red clothespins on each of these ribbons. When I attached the ribben I made sure it was very taut. I also tucked the ribbons beginning and end under the bulletin board border.  I also stapled the middle fo the ribbon to the board to help avoid any drooping! What's also great about the clothespins is the ability to move them. I love the flexibility they afford me. 

Sorry it's a tad blurry ~ I'm still just loving the way the white title pops! 

I have been working in my classroom this week. I plan on having my entire room first day ready by Friday of next week. That includes LPs and copies :) I'm determined.

That's all for tonight! This week I plan on posting how I plan on using a writer's binder in my classroom and my writing station. There will be a couple freebies involved!!

I'm BACK! Candy Themed Labels

This post is long over due! I have soooo many things to blog about: Debbie Diller's Summer Institute, new class layout, all the features of my room, Debbie Diller's Summer Institute (yes it was awesome), my back to school purchases, and a couple other things up my sleeve!


I've had several followers ask about the classroom labels they see in my classroom.  I just uploaded all of them up onto my TPT store! The BEST part is that ALL the labels are also provided blank.


Here is the preview file :)

Check It Out!

Check It Out!

Check It Out!

Check It Out!

Check It Out!

 You can see the labels in use in my classroom in the following pictures:

That's all for now! I'm in Georgia for some vacation so its brief and short tonight :)

Teacher Tuesday ~ Classroom Themes

Well I love MJ's style over at Teaching in Heels! I was just scrolling through my google reader and came across her post discussing classroom themes. When I was going into my first year of teaching it took me awhile to come up with a classroom theme. Did I want to go with a theme? Did I want to have a theme centered around an object or around color? After a good it of debate and searching the intenet I came up with a Candy/Sweets theme. Can I just say there is not that much made for this theme. Especially in educational stores. It required some thinking outside the box and creating things on my own. My mom really helped me out coming up with some cute candy/sweet connections and items for my room. So I stuck with a loose candy/sweet theme and chose to tie in primary colors. I have come to love it more and more. Especially now that I can create things on my computer! I've created some of the following things this summer to really tie in all the candy/sweet themes. 

Here are som things I've made, picked up along the way, and purchased to tie my theme together. Of course by September this year everything will be tweaked a bit because my classroom in an evolving learning environment. As teachers shouldn't we be willing to learn and grow since it's what we ask of our students? Just a thought. Now onto some more pics . . . 

2B Smarties ( as in the candies. . . if you look closely at the border I attached  smarties' wrappers!)

At the beginning of the year it say Welgum to 2B and write my students' names onto each gumball.

This let's you see the bright colors in my room and some of the candy elements. . . DOTS blanket, M&M umbrella, smarties board. . . 

My labels all have candy on them! And are all in the bright primary colors :)

M&M rug and on the hair there is a Laffy taffy pillow. That chair was a HUGE hit with my sweets :)

My library sign! It was my dad's idea and it's still SUPER awesome.
Another perk to using primary color sin your classroom is they are almost always for sale. Educational supplies almost always include primary colors. Finding bins and other things is pretty easy!

Hope you enjoyed. Go link up your thoughts on classroom themes with MJ's Teacher Tuesday!


I've also linked this post up to 

For her

Go and Check everyone's link ups. I just LOVE classroom picture/theme link ups. What can I say?


Please remember if you grab any photos off my blog to credit them to me and provide a link back to this post :)

Guided Math Review and Reflect Chapter 2!

 
All I can say is I am LOVING this book. I've decided to do two separate posts on chapter 2. This way I don't overload you all. Today's will be focusing on the Review and Reflect questions at the end of the chapter. Tomorrow's (aka my bday) will be Jots and Thoughts. Jots and Thoughts will be a recap of my thoughts while reading certain oarts and what I jotted down on the margin. 

Without further ado, Review and Reflect Chapter 2. . . 

1. Look back at the Foundational Principles of Guided Math (page 37). Which do you think are the two most important of these principles? Why? How does your classroom reflect those principles?

First off the Foundational Principles of Guided Math are: 

• All students can learn mathematics
• A numeracy rich environment promotes mathematical learning by students
• learning at its best is a social process
• learning mathematics is a constructive process
• an organized classroom environment supports the learning process
• modeling and think-alouds, combined with ample opportunities for guided and then independent problem solving and purposeful conversations, create a learning environment in which students’ mathematical understanding grows
• Ultimately, students are responsible for their learning

Now before I tell you the two I choose to be the “most important” I want to say they all are (I know a cop out) but that is not to say that two do stand out to me as very important. 

All students can learn mathematics

and

Ultimately, students are responsible for their learning

Choosing these two foundational principles may appear to some as, I, the teacher not taking responsibility for teaching. Quite on the contrary, saying that all students can learn mathematics to me means I MUST set HIGH expectations on my students. Students will meet your high expectations! As a student I met them when teachers set the expectations high and made it known to me. Those were some of the most rewarding learning experiences. As a teacher, it is important to encourage students in their learning, give them all the tools you can to help them meet the high expectations I set. And guess what? Setting high expectations implies ALL students can learn math. 

     Here’s another little secret I discovered this past year. . . When students realize the high expectations put on them in a NURTURING and LOVING classroom community environment they also realize they must contribute to that environment. In my classroom that means emphasizing the importance of them! It is their responsibility to learn. All I can do is give them the tools the best I possibly can. They must DO the learning. I know can you believe I have the nerve to say that ;) Gee some days I truly think the students and/or their parents think that they just need to show up and thats it. You want to know what else is sad about that? Some teachers let that occur. I pray that won’t be me. So the two most foundational principles in my classroom are 

All students can learn mathematics

and

Ultimately, students are responsible for their learning

My classroom reflects the importance of these two principles in what I say. . .

“I need you to do the best you can do.” “Is this your best work?” “How could you do this better?” etc. . . Also, I believe it is important not to give my students the answers to work, i.e, they are responsible for their learning. I try and guide them to the answer or use the scaffolding technique (got to love that)!

I can’t wait to hear which ones you think are the two most important and WHY? You MUST tell me why! lol You know we always ask our students explain their answers so we should be doing the same . . . You know since we are suppose to be modeling and all :)

2. DO you think your students feel that they are members of a mathematical learning community? If so, how did you establish that feeling of community? If not, what can you do to create it?

I think that I will be focusing a lot on creating a mathematical community in my classroom this coming year. Truly the thought never crossed my mind. Creating a classroom environment where there is a pronounced “community” between the students and the teacher was all I had considered. That was evident in my classroom but as far as the math I can’t wait to make that happen next year. My mind is spinning with ideas. More on that in my Thoughts and Jots post tomorrow. 

There was a math bulletin board last year in my room which had math station rules, math vocabulary, and some anchor charts. As good as that sounds it wasn’t updated enough. I think one of the things I will be doing on the FIRST day of school this coming year is creating a “Everyday Math” anchor chart with the students emphasizing the math we use everyday. I think it will be quite eye opening for the students. It will help them make math to self and math to world connections!

3. Look at your classroom through the eyes of a new student. Walking into your class, what would he or she see that would indicate the importance of mathematics?

At the moment they would see quite a bit of boxes and tarps . . . hehe ;) Couldn’t resist it. If a new student was walking in my classroom last year they would have seen the picture below showing an area of the room dedicated to math. There is also a calendar wall on the east front wall. I do have some rearranging planned in my head for this coming year but I like to have dedicated ares for anchor charts and subject specific things in the room. 

The Math bulletin board is bordered in the yellow. I don't have a ton of wall space so things are what they are. I have a "math talk" speech bubble to showcase the math vocabulary words. The math workstation rules are also posted.

This is my math organization for "current" in use math materials. I LOVE this! It has worked out so well. It also takes a significant space that draws students attention to all the "math."

I would love to read which TWO Foundational Principals of Guided Math you would choose as most important! The only catch is you must explain why you chose those! I think it would be great to read each others thoughts on that!