Some Changes in Room 117

As the school year has changed, so has my classroom. I have discovered some things have worked wonderfully, while I others I have had to change to meet the needs of my kiddos that I have. One of the major changes that I have made has been to my classroom library. I had already redone it once, but I was not quite satisfied with it. I got sick of my kids putting their books back in the wrong baskets and I wanted to help them with that. I went on a serious labeling overhaul.

I had some baskets from the Dollar Tree that I of course paid a dollar for each, but they were not holding up as well as I would have liked. I splurged and ordered these colorful baskets from Really Good Stuff. I love them. my kids love them, and the other teachers in my hallway are jealous of them. I did have to pay a little more for them, but I have a feeling that they are going to hold up nicely.

I labeled each basket by genre and also put a small round sticker with a number on it. The number represents which basket number it is for that genre. I think I have 9 Fantasy baskets in my library.

 Depending on the number that is on the basket, the books in that basket also have a small same color sticker on them too. This way students know that it goes in the 1 basket.

I also added a sticker on the spine of each book that says the genre too. I told you it was label overkill. However, it has worked great and I am not stuck reshelving tons of books at the end of each day.

Another one of the big changes in my classroom has been the addition of an A-Z word wall. I always thought that this was only for the elementary classroom, but my kids have loved it too. This was actually a suggestion that Valerie (the Shletered Instruction observer) gave me during her first observation in my room. I am pretty sure that I got this as a freebie from the Teacher Wife.

Right now I only use it with my 2 regular classes and we place their vocabualry words up on it each week. We write the word and then draw a small illustration to go with it to help us remember what it means.

Here is a closer look at what we do. I have just been using unlined 3x5 index cards for this.

This board is what I intended to use as my word wall, notice the catchy letters at the top. It took a good few weeks before one of my students actually noticed that it did not say Hollywood.

This is where I display our word maps and such. Before these I had up their illustrated idioms on it. The one that is not cut out belongs to one of my ED kiddos that refused to cut it out. Sometimes it is just not worth the battle. Here is a closeup of the square that I use. I purchased this through Lightbulb Minds which is the older grade version of Teacher's Clubhouse.

I have been really encouraging my students to write in complete sentences, but of course this student did not do that. Her illustrations were great though. :)

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It is also time for Giveaway #2 for the Holly Bloggy Christmas. They are working with Jennifer Mecca for a Christmas Card design. I have been searching for the perfect design for mine and I have a few of hers that I am really eyeing.

Sign ups for the Holly Bloggy Giveaway also end tomorrow, and trust me, you do not want to miss out on this fun!!!

Scholastic's Best Customer

Do you remember my big Scholastic order that I blogged about last week? The one where I earned over 5000 bonus points for it? Well it came in today! Luckily the boxes came during my conference because I would have had to stop teaching and open them because I was so excited. 

Yep, that is over 100 books that I have sitting on my small group table right now. The best part is that they will get to go with me wherever I go since I paid for them with my own money.

I cannot wait to start book clubs with my students! I hope they will be as excited for them as I am!

The Book Whisperer

This book by Donalyn Miller is absolutely amazing! I actually had the privilege to hear her speak at the ATPE conference 2 year ago. At that time though I was anticipating being in a elementary classroom and not in a 6th grade classroom. Mrs. Miller teaches 6th grade in Texas and has her students meet a book requirement of 40 books a year.

I am very passionate about independent reading in my classroom and know that it is an important part of my student's learning experience. This year I have been trying to do that, but it has not been quite as successful as I would like. We have about 20-25 minutes of Independent Reading time every day, but I always notice too many of my kids participating in it properly. In her book she talks about how pointless it is to have students keep a reading log of their reading at home because too often students will make it up. I could not agree with this more. In the 12 weeks I spent in 6th grade last year, those teachers were all about reading logs. I am glad to know there is now someone else on my side.  

I have been trying to integrate a reading workshop with mini-lessons, but now after reading this book I am going to totally revamp what I do. I am thinking about implementing a book requirement with my class now of  25 books by the end of the school year. I just ordered some baskets and am making some genre labels for the baskets. I also just ordered some new storage things to help organize my library. I really think that by organizing my library by just a bit more my students will be more inclined to want to read books from it. I also really liked her ideas of using garage ale stickers to number each book so that students can easily place them back in the correct basket. 

I am so excited about the new possibilities that I am going to be able to give my students during the rest of this school year and all of my future students as well. 

Next on the professional reading list, The Daily 5. 

Classroom Library

As many of you know, I have taken over a 6th grade Language Arts class for the remainder of the school year, and I have also accepted this position for the upcoming school year. I have been going through the contents of the room over the past week or so and trying to get it organized in a way that I like. I have posted this picture before, but this is what the library area looked like in my room. 

You can see all of the books are just stuffed on the shelves, and I knew that I wanted to make it more accessible for the kids. I knew I wanted baskets and labels and that is exactly what I did. 

I love how it turned out and the kids have been so excited about it too! They actually helped me label the tubs and all of the books with my stickers. 

The only problem now is when I run out of room. At the rate I order from Scholastic, it might be sooner rather than later.:) 

I have also decided that I want to have a theme in my classroom for this coming school year after talking to several of my current students about it. I have some ideas for my vocabulary wall (Hollyword Wall), News and Sports Schedules (Lights, Camera, Action!), where students will pick up their returned papers (Fan Mail), but what could the reading area be? I am stumped right now as to what I want it to be called.

13 days

That is all that remains in this school year. It is hard to believe that it is almost over. The past 2 months have flown by! 

I have been amazed at how done my kids have been. It is like pulling teeth to get them to do something in class for me. The other teachers have been telling me that this group of 6th graders we have right now is the most difficult one they have had in years and they are like that in every class. It is hard though when some of the other teachers always seem to be showing movies, and I am actually still attempting to get some instruction done. It is just so great when the kids walk into my classroom asking if we are watching a movie today! I think I am going to start a writing project with them in the middle of the week...any suggestions on a fun topic or writing idea?

This past week I also completely redid my library in my room, and I love how it turned out! The kids are already so much more excited about it and they cannot wait for my Scholastic order to come in on Monday. I promise to take pictures once I get the last of the bins finished this week and then share them with you all. 

This week I found out what I am going to be teaching this coming school year. I am going to have 2 Pre AP classes and 1 regular class just like I have this year. I really have enjoyed the Pre AP kids, but it is nice to have a regular class too to help me differentiate my instruction for the higher kids. This also means though that I am going to have to take a 30 hour GT class this summer. Luckily, I am going to be able to do this online and will not have to travel to a workshop for a week.

The joys of being a first year teacher I have discovered also includes getting many duties put on you that others do not want to do. I am officially the assistant cheer/spirit squad sponsor for this coming school year. I am actually excited about it because I think that it will be lots of fun, but I am not looking forward to the mama drama which I know will happen. Matter of fact, I have one of the cheerleaders in my class right now and she is a little bit of a bully. There has been a problem that has now escalated into me having to write an office referral for her and she could potentially lose her spot on the squad. Hopefully this will really enlighten her and her behavior will change. 

I will be back this coming week with some pictures and sharing a novel study with you all for Tuck Everlasting.

Classroom Library

My classroom library is one of the things that I have been working on for quite some time now. I have been collecting books for quite some time now and have a collection of over 300 books already. I have found my books at various places such as bookstores, garage sales, and my favorite of them all...Scholastic Book Orders! Luckily I have several contacts at the local elementary school and they are wonderful about sharing the book orders with me and I am guilty of spending $50 at a time on them. Hopefully when I have my first classroom I will have some wonderful parents who love to order from the book orders and help to earn me some bonus points that I can use to continue to add to the classroom library. 

As I have been putting the books away, I have also made sure to label them with my name as well as an AR label. I found this great website called AR Bookfinder and I have used it to label all of my books for Accelerated Reader tests and book levels.  I created a label to put on the front of all of my books that includes the test number, AR level, and point value and then I just look it up and write the information on the label. If you are interested in seeing the labels just shoot me an email to k.e.klohn@gmail.com and I would be more than happy to share them with you. 

What sort of things do you do to help keep your classroom library organized? Any tips for a future teacher?