The Day Has Arrived!!

    So tomorrow is the day I go back.  I have had a great summer with my kids.  Albeit at times I wanted to come back sooner... Oh well it's here there's no denying it any longer.  I went in last week and spent some time unpacking and setting up my room. Our building is still under construction we've been split into two buildings, we are still split until October/November.  But, lucky me, I get to move on back as I take on the 4/5 combo classroom.  
    I admit upon entering I was a little skeptical how it was going to be kid friendly come the 15th, but the crew is confident so I will put my trust in them!  I took a few pics of the before and after.  I will save you the pictures of the hallway with construction guys everywhere, grouting, doing electrical etc.  Sorry for the quality I took them with my phone.  I will remember to bring my camera many days this year! 

 So this is what it looked like when I walked in. Not too bad...boxes stacked neatly, furniture piled in the corner. I can do this!!

 

 This is what it looked like 5 hours later!  Pretty good. Oh wait there's a giant gaping demolished wall... Oh yeah our whiteboards are being held up in Shangai. Yes! Shangai!! So until those arrive we will be getting a smaller temporary one so I will have to cover up the ends of that nastiness!! 

 

 And the back.  I love the library and all the storage!! I filled it right up.  Some of you may be wondering where my desk is, well we no longer have desks in our building and most likely across the district now. They want a more kid friendly space that is all for student use, not a big ol' desk taking up precious work space.  So I just use that big table,  pretty much a glorified desk.

  Tomorrow when I go in it is get ready for back to school night and putting up some much needed decorations/color!

The Room is Alive...

     Okay well that is a little miss leading.  I actually haven't been in my room since May.  Our building is going through a major remodel and last year I was housed out of a seperate building.  Now that I am moving up I am not going to be in the brand new building, in a brand new room!! Kinda excited for that new carpet smell...aaahhhh.  
     So in the mean time I am chomping at the bit to get in and get things unpacked.  We don't even get the go ahead until the 7th at the earliest! We start the 15th!! As teachers know this is not a lot of time to get things organized and set up, especially being that I am changing grade levels. Again. 
    I am spending my nights making name tags and classroom newsletters.  Anything that will give me more time to set up later.  I will attach my newletter, but I still don't know if the cute fonts and such will transfer, I am not quite ready to start paying a server to save my docs as pdfs.  

It's a Mystery

So our district came out with the genre focus for our grade levels, and with me being a 4/5 combo I will do a little of each grade.  Rewind to end of the school year and I was perusing my genre list and saw fantasy!! Oh yeah, I may have even done a little dance.  That is my most favorite genre!!  Fast forward to Monday... and they made some changes!  Now instead of fantasy I get to teach mystery...  I did not do a dance this time.  Don't get me wrong I love a good mystery movie, but really it's not my cup o' tea.  But as a teacher I need to do what I teach my children and that is to broaden their reading palate.  So with that in mind I am making it a  goal to read at least one mystery this month. What are some of your favorite mysteries???

Scheduling Scheduling

     Alright it's June 28th and the master schedule has been sent out from our principal, eh not to shabby this year. My Friday's are awesome, rest of the week... We are required to have 3 hours of literacy each day and 1hr15 min of math and then content gets what is left over.  The latter makes me sad, as science is my most favorite subject (and that of my student's). So I am left trying to find ways to bring content into our literacy block through research and writing experiences.  You can see the break down of my schedule here.  Feel free do download and adjust as it fits you. 
****Side note: t I am font freak and love to color code and use a variety of fonts, it is like a sickness I swear, I cannot however figure out how to upload the cute version of my documents I get to see. Oh well I am a teacher, a lover of paper, smell of new pencils, post its, labels and funky fonts! 

Summer Lovin'

Yay summer time!!  Time to sleep in and lay around all day in the sun...right...WRONG!  I think that my students think this is what I do all summer long, let's be honest fellow teachers know that this does not happen.  Summers for a teacher, as much as we would love to use the 3 months to travel and sunbathe, are spent gearing up for the coming year. Sad, but true.  My summer days are spent with my children trying to keep them causing complete chaos with some constructive activity each day (like a lesson plan...) and my part time become more each month it seems photography hobby.  I love my time away from the classroom,  it gives me a chance to regroup and gear up for the next year.  

    This summer is no different, I have been part of a book study looking at this text:

I love this book!! I read it last year in about April and was wishing I had read it sooner, but there you go.  I love the ideas about creating a community of readers and writers.  Leslie has so many great ideas about the use of literacy logs, or a Book Lovers Book as she calls it that you truly have to read this text to fully understand how you can implement them in your classroom.  One of my top reads for the year.   

Next Round of Literature Discussion Groups

So some students just loved their books, and others...not so much. In one group we actually abandoned our book and discussed some of the reasons why a reader abandons a book.            

 

               

Rolling Through Forces & Motion

We have culminated our study of forces and motion by creating our own roller coaster.  Last week the students work to design their roller coaster on their own plot of land. They had to first think of the layout the ride would take within their park (area).  Then they worked in teams to make the best ride.  Here is just the start of their designs. Tomorrow we will test them and see if our design needs some "tweaking".