Comments wanted!!!

I love it when students are learners outside of our class.  One of my boys wrote a book last night about his trip to a zoo.  So great!  He gets what being a writer is all about.  He also brought in some animals and we had a great time talking about how we would sort them...so, readers, this is where you come into play.  How would you sort them?  Share your thoughts with us so we can see if we matched or had different ideas.

Organization

A favorite time of day for me is when students are engaged in their reading.  Every year I share our classroom library with the class.  This year, I had them explore it a little differently.  I took most of our books out and divided them up into baskets.  Then, a small group of students was able to look through the baskets this week.

Today, we sorted them based on what they thought went together and then we placed them into baskets. 

The class finally got to spend some time in our library...whew!

New Additions

I have added a new behavior chart where students can see how they are doing through the day.  The large cup to the right is a new location for students to place their questions that they write during the day so I am not interrupted when I am conferring.  The basket to the left is filled with pencils for students' birthdays.  

This is our buddy reading area.  I purchased new baskets to contain these books to keep them away from our library.  

Our library!  I moved the shelves this year and the library looks HUGE!  You can see our books in bins on the floor.  We'll be going through the Queen Bee's book boot camp this week!

Argh, my messy desk!  I am working through all of the piles of papers that occur the first week of school.  I'll post a photo next Friday and hopefully you'll see a difference!

I moved our calendar so it's closer to our meeting area.  I  am hoping to have a math meeting and be more intentional of using our math talk here.  

Fair is not always equal...

We shared "One time I got hurt..." stories to practice turning and talking in our writing workshop.  My friend (who we will be pen pals with) shared this idea with me.

As each child talked with their partner, I walked around and gave them a bandage on their hand.  Most kids were a little curious and finally started to giggle as each child received the same treatment.

However, not everyone had stories about the same type of injury. 

I am hoping that as the year goes on, students will learn that I will not be giving everybody the same "bandage".   Each child needs their "bandage" where it serves them best.

We're back!!!

School is back in bloom!  I have a new colony of bees and apparently they like school so far...

I couldn't seem to get the photos to rotate...sorry!