Favorites

 Ever noticed how hard it is to take a picture of a window? No joke! This is one of my favorite things in my classroom this year, though. A complete makeover of the windows that line the entire wall, opposite the door of my classroom.  The little flag banners are 12x12 inch squares of scrapbook paper. Two swags (one from each end of the windows to the middle) were made by cutting the squares of paper in half, horizontally and vertically; then cutting each of those in half, horizontally and vertically; then cutting each of those in half, diagonally. Each piece of paper made 16 isosceles triangles. The middle swag cuts across both of the other pennants, and has larger triangles. Just cut in half diagonally sooner, and each paper makes 8 larger isosceles triangles.  I punched a hole in each end of the (hypotenuse) diagonal cut, strung it through with twine, and used a tiny piece of scotch tape to keep it from flipping on itself. Probably not necessary, but the whole process took less than an hour for all three banners, so the extra step wasn't a deal breaker for me.

The other straight line hanging there is a thin wire I've had for a few years with clothespins attached to hang posters/student work. I work in an urban school, so the glimpse of blue sky and tree is by no means taken for granted. {LOVE}

 I made the curtains from sheets. I took three twin sheets (two are white with green and blue circles stamped on, one is plain blue) and cut them half.  Each half already had three hemmed sides (the sides of the sheet come hemmed, as do the top and bottom of the sheet) so all I had to do was fold over the edge of side where I had made the cut, and sew a straight line. They are held in place with tension rods, which I already had from the old curtains I had made when I first moved into this classroom three years ago.

I added huge, fluffy, tissue paper pom poms. There was no magic to the colors, just used what I had and ended up with three lime greens, two pinks, and one tangerine.  You can buy Martha Stewart kits to make these, but really, there's no need. I just accordion folded 8 to 10 layers of tissue paper, then trimmed the edges, either rounding them or making them a point. Tie the folded tissue paper in the middle using a pipe cleaner, in my case, and carefully separate and fluff the layers. I hung these by attaching twine to the pipe cleaners and using a staple gun to attach each one to the acoustic ceiling tiles. (shhhh, don't tell our custodians!)

 The math workshop and bulletin board area. The polka dot border is actually duct tape. I used the brown kraft paper as the background to every bulletin board in my room. I made the window pennants too long, so these extra tails worked out as decorations here. The pocket charts are from the dollar spot at Target. The longer purple one is the actual size, the other four are cut in half.  I'll show how I use this area soon, as I haven't started it with my students yet (we had two half days last week, and next week is our first full week!) but the math bins and journals/notebooks you see there on the bottom are talked about in the last "I'm painting" post. ;)

I have two long shelves under the window. These are baskets of books for the classroom library. I'm in the middle (beginnings? lol) of trying to cull out old books, and update the library, as well as sort them into some usable format. Probably by some combination of genre/series/authors. I used to have them by reading level, but I have since decided that it's more important to teach them how to pick their own interesting book, and give them strategies for determining if it's the right level for them, then to direct them to pre-leveled books. I can't think of anywhere else in life where that decision will be made for them, so this seems like the more lasting skill path to take. A path full of missteps and issues, to be sure, but worth walking I do believe.

Under those two shelves are the textbooks for science, social studies, and math. So far, I'm not letting them use desks. We'll see how long it lasts!

Home Away From Home

I've been keeping very busy the last few weeks. I was overtaken by the urge to completely overhaul my classroom. Several contributing factors led me to go through every file, box, closet, cupboard, and drawer. I have been purging, recycling, donating, gifting, and tossing like....well, frankly, like it isn't my own stuff. Do you know that feeling? I love when I feel completely detached from STUFF and I like to take advantage of those periods of time. Teachers (elementary school teachers, in particular) are notorious hoarders. But I had three big steel file cabinets in my room....representing 15 cumulative years of teaching 5 different grade levels AND five years of being a math coach....and 90% of what was in those filing cabinets.....went straight into the recycling or the "free to good home box". I pushed those empty cabinets into the hallway and I feel about 2000% better already.

But more than just cleaning, and organizing, I've taken a big leap and I'm actually....well, I guess the word I'm looking for is "decorating". There are teachers who LOVE to make bulletin boards and pick a "theme" each year....The Beach, then The Rainforest, then Western, and on and on. Then there is me. I do not. I gladly leave up the backings for three years (and they were kindly left up by the person who had the room before me! lol) and have students staple up work when the mood strikes.

But I don't know.....it hit me this summer that I would nest into my classroom, the same way I nest into my home. And I'm never going to be what I am not, but I was suddenly inspired to be a much better "what I am".

So here are some befores and some durings, as I am not done.

 Here's something funny. I typically think of my closets as pretty organized. It's not unusual for me to even have some empty shelves in my closets, so this before picture of the first two kinda shocks even me. But, at the end of the year, things that are usually out and about in the classroom need to be stowed away in favor of a deep cleaning (our custodians work their butts off all summer! love them!) so that accounts for some of the haphazard look. But not all of it, no sir.

 

Here is the first closet. Bottom three shelves (blue, then white, then repurposed green worm bin haha!) are all base ten math materials. units, tens, hundreds, and thousands. Need them.

Next shelf is a box with my unit on rocks (a box of rocks! only a teacher!), a box of multiplication array cards, and on top, a box AND two tubs of dice - dice!!!! - and three big jars of assorted beans. If you're wondering about my mental health, so am I. SO MANY DICE. I actually labeled the box of dice with a small sign that says "OMG Dice" haha. For some reason, everything I touched had some number of small paperclips and dice. I cannot explain, but if you need either, give me a call.

 Nothing fancy here, and I've already emptied those shelves and am separating those books into "staying" and "giving away", but $7.50 for a shower curtain, rings, and a tension rod never looked so good in my opinion. And a coat of black paint makes EVERYTHING better, including two cement garden blocks and a shelf I found that, it seems, was once part of that very bookshelf.

 Speaking of black paint, I'm looking at you writing cupboard. This is a during and after, technically, since in the photo on the left I've already painted the top and sides with the black paint. Picture the "oak" veneer on the sides and straight up board on top, since the oak veneer panel had popped off long before I moved into the classroom. Contact paper left over from pantry (surprisingly easy to apply...I had certainly anticipated much cursing, but it was a pleasant 6 minutes) and it's no longer being used for writing.

 These are the extra math materials (a lot of these will come out and go into individual bags the students keep at their desks) and the shelves where their Problem Solving Journals are kept. The kids can use all of these at will.

 Black paint for all (love you black paint!) and some Dollar Store scrapbook paper....and the afters are so much nicer! In the after picture, I have the cubby facing the "wrong" direction because on top is a stacking 'inbox' system I use to keep their math folders. It only fits on the cubby in this direction, so for now, this makes the most sense to me. We'll see if the orientation is a problem once The Squirrels move in. Oh, why can't they keep these in their desks? Because they aren't allowed to. Things in their desks get ripped, lost, spilled on, stuck to.....and, whatever else. No desks for you!

 Before: 24 cubbies. These were when K-3 had 20 students. Each student was assigned a cubby for....I don't know? Homework? Book storage? Mail? I have no idea, but the tell-tale stickers of student names (students I've never even met who are, I'm assuming, driving by now) and generally grungy appearance has been hidden for three years under.....uh, MORE math bins. haha What can I say? I'm a hammer, so everything I see is a nail.

 During: Meet my new writing center. Black paint on the sides and run across the fronts, more Dollar Store scrapbook paper and this showstopper is going places. 24 cubbies for a writing center, you ask? Oh, it's full.