Thursday, August 30, 2012

Tuning into Learning!

I am so excited about the theme in my classroom this year: Technology!! School starts in less than a week and I've been in this week getting bulletin boards ready to go! I put the students' names on each iPad, this is my welcome board.


 iHelp - Classroom Jobs

I did not do jobs last year - but have always done them in 4th grade. By mid-year I realized that 5th graders love to have jobs and wanted them! So this year, in keeping with my technology theme, I created an iHelp board with iPods labeled for each job. I am going to take off the iPods from the door after the 1st or 2nd week and use them to assign jobs.














It's All Greek (and Latin) to me!

I teach my students a little Greek every year when I have a Greek day around Greece's independence day on March 25th (it's also a nice break from state testing) This year with the Common Core standards being worded a little differently for us, I decided to create a Greek and Latin root word wall with common prefixes and suffixes. I color coded them for content related words (blue is Math, red is English, green is Science, and purple is Social Studies) as words come up I will all them to the wall with premade labels. The kids will then add their own examples from their different classes on index cards under to the specific prefix or suffix.

  Homework/Reminders Board







Here is where I will write nightly HW along with the Monthly Precept (seriously, read Wonder by RJ Palacio!) I also put my 5th grade class picture up from when I was in 5th grade. The kids will have to guess where I am in the pic :)

Desk Arrangement


 I FINALLY HAVE DESKS!!!! This is a dream come true. Seriously! Due to our much smaller class sizes, my teammates graciously donated these single desks to me. I can't tell you how excited I am about setting the room up in different ways. I had these desk in elementary school and miss them greatly! Last year I had trapezoid tables. I wasn't a fan!

 Classroom Library - Coming Soon!



 I like to cover the bookshelves to create a little element of surprise :) I used velcro command strips (my new BFF) to attached the letters R-E-A-D to the wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Words with Friends 

My favorite all-time game to watch the kids play! We play to regulation rules - to an extent, but I challenge them to find the word in the dictionary if they insist that it is a real word!
















 Welcome! 

(yes I should have started with the door, but it was the last picture I took heading out today! So last it is!)




And my door....thanks to Pinterest and My Journey to 5th Grade for the Welcome Poster (I changed it up, but here's the credit for my inspiration)


















Can you tell I'm kinda sorta excited to start the year?!


Ok, off to enjoy the last weekend of summer with my 2 little classroom helpers! 



1 comment:

  1. I know you haven't posted in a while-- so I hope you get this. Can you explain to me how you play your Words with Friends in your classroom? Also if you have a bigger version of the board I could look at, I'd love it! (Does it look just like the online game?)

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