Well, I went back to my classroom today. This time the A/C was on and it felt good!! The only bad thing is they were testing the bells and I realized I only have one more week at home before I go back to work on August 2nd! Ugh!
I stopped by the Dollar Tree beforehand, picking up 2 magazine holders (small, only a little over 8.5"), some party birthday cups (in red, yellow and green) and a new bulletin board border.
These were too cute to resist with their mathy decor. You can see in the second picture that I put a yard stick next to it so you could see the width.
I have resisted the use of red, yellow and green cups in groups for years. My Mom used them over 10 years ago in the computer lab at an elementary school. I plan on using them when students are in groups, each group getting one of each color. Green means they are doing fine, yellow means they may need help soon and red means they are stuck. I want my students to learn to communicate and work together, so they must come to a consensus about what they want to ask before they put the red cup on top. When I get to the group, I will answer questions from one person. This means that they will have needed to discuss it prior to me coming over.
I used this new border to cover up some of the (ugly) burgundy around this window. I don't like that the calendar isn't centered. Right now its held up with strong magnet clips, but I'm going to try to get command hooks to stick to it.
I am the most proud of this section of the room. I freaking LOVE these colors together and am amazed that they match so well, being made of plastic tablecloth, paper, duct tape (on top of table) and tutu netting!
The day before, I created many posters, some inspirational (in blue, teal and lime green) and some necessary rules (in yellow, oranges, red and hot pink on another wall). Some of those posters were found from different sources on the internet. The 1st, 3rd, 5th and 7th posters are from
Light Bulbs and Laughter and is a free download. The "Strengthen a Dendrite" poster was downloaded free from
here (as soon as I find the tweet/blog I found the link in, I will give credit...SORRY!). At the end I will give links to the posters I created for free download.
I love this set of posters about respect and the main color is lime green! I downloaded it for free from
Digital Divide and Conquer. I printed them two-to-a-page so they are half the size they were designed to be. I wanted them to line up with the side of my assignment board.
The WELCOME posters on the front of my desk came from Sarah Carter at @mathequalslove.
I have an unhealthy love of pocket charts! This one is huge and will hold the vocabulary for multiple units. Each unit is a different color, so there are 5 units shown here. The remaining units of vocabulary words are in the container sitting on the end of the table.
I've now designed the WORD WALL title and unit numbers and will cut them out with my Silhouette Cameo (a machine that no teacher should be without!!). You can see the measurements on both the title and the group of unit numbers. (More pics later...)
This is a view of my assignment board (still waiting on my magnet strips to come in!), the RESPECT posters and the word wall.
The Mathematical Practices are on the posters below the board. My new last name is on teal chevron party plates above the board and at the top is a sign I made last year. It says, "Make Yourself Proud". I think it fits in well with my Growth Mindset approach and inspirational posters.
And of course, we have to have rules and expectations. Here are posters of the policies: for tardies, for cell phones, for food/drink, for restroom passes and for backpacks and purses.
Still on my list of things to do:
- Put teacher computer on the podium (large one I built several years ago)
- Spray paint file cabinets (not inside, even though Magic Erasers help get overspray off the freshly waxed floors)
- Put up Word Wall title and unit numbers
- Finish the assignment board, including titles: M, T, W, T, F, Agenda, I Can, EQ, Power Hour Schedule, etc.
- Draw out the brain (using the projector) and finish Growth Mindset bulletin board
- Hang my ROBERTS pegboards (4 of the 7 fell using Command velcro, UGH!)
- And any other crazy idea I can come up with!
Free Poster Downloads (all in PDF form):
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Relationships & Using a Formula
Sorry about the crazy formatting of the posters. I wanted to go ahead and publish this post, so I'll work on the formatting later to satisfy my OCD-ness!!
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