Search results matching tags 'classroom management' and 'centers'

Pinterest find: Classroom Organization

Anonymous — Thu, 05 Jul 2012 23:58:23 GMT

So I haven’t been writing in my blog this summer. What have I been doing? (You know, besides drinking cold chardonnays in the evenings, reading books, sleeping in, and organizing my house a tiny bit each day?)

I have been PINTERESTING. Man, I am in love with that site. I love to check out what is new under the general heading of Education, and sometimes I’ll be more specific (“classroom organization,” “teacher desk,” “preschool education,” etc.). I have found some great stuff, and want to share some of it with you.

Here are a few things I have on my personal board that I’ve labeled “Classroom Organization.”

First, from a blog called First Grade Blue Skies, here is a great way to organize your classroom cut-out letters. I put mine in big envelopes, but then I pile them up in a cupboard and forget I have them. This is much more accessible.

I might also organize them by type of letter, but her way might still be more efficient.

The next great idea comes from The Very Busy Kindergarten.

This is not the image of the completed project; for some reason I couldn’t make that work, so please click this link to check out her post about how to organize scrap paper for your art center by color. I loooove this idea. My art center has never been well-organized, but this might be the thing to get our art center working.

More great ideas for teachers from Pinterest tomorrow!

Classroom clutter clutters learning in preschool

Anonymous — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 10:00:42 GMT

A little discussion about how clutter impacts the children in the preschool classroom!

Fabulous Ideas!

Anonymous — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:47:00 GMT

Last week I ran a giveaway, and the only thing readers had to do to enter was put a comment with an idea of something they'd like to read about in my blog. I got some great ideas from readers' comments!

More brain based ideas
Technology
Dr. Seuss
Mother's Day ideas
Ideas for themes
How we share holiday
Ideas to help the children feel successful
Improving writing style
Teaching with food
Theme units and ideas for writing
Small groups in reading
Grammar for upper elementary
Motivating students to write (writing prompts or ideas)
Organization of ideas
Holiday theme related ideas
Management and organization
Fun ideas (where they don't realize they're learning!)
Ideas for centers
Phonics
Word work ideas
Storage for centers
Mini-books
Common Core ideas

I'm pretty impressed with these ideas! In fact, I can't wait to get going on these!

Of course, I'll also stick to my usual passions, particularly brain based learning, as well as sharing my experince and sharing what I learn from other teachers and other bloggers.

I have to admit, this blogging stuff is fun!

Sally

Balancing my Time at School...

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:24:00 GMT

Wouldn't it be great if we could make multiples of ourselves just so that we can get everything done? I try to make my own posters and centers. I do this when my students have extra-curricular activities going on. As long as I finish correcting their books and do my own day to day organisation of classroom work, I get so excited to create something from my to-do list. I use the store-bought charts too but I prefer to make them because I think that the students appreciate it more and it gives my classroom a more personal touch. These are a few of the charts that I was a able to make in a hurry...

I use this chart to reward them for spelling only. They get a few words every Monday and are tested every Friday. The Friday weekly test is the highlight of their week (it seems). I love that they are so eager! I used a space theme for this term. By now, they are overflowing with stars. My boys like anything related to science (and the girls like everything). So they are grouped up for co-operative learning in their space themed groups (see the lower part of the chart). Five to six students are in each group.

This is my area for storing our class money (it's all pretend of course!) but the coins are real. We use it for the buying and selling of... whatever! They bring their toys and the wrappers and boxes from used grocery items to set up a make believe class shop. That's fun. I also have some fractions and geometry stuff here too. As more stuff gets added for each topic area, I will separate them and have each topic area with its own centers. By the way, these 'pocket charts' were made from some folders that I cut up and stapled. Hey, ... I was in a hurry!

For the chart below, we had just started doing nouns and my students brought the pictures. I only provided the chart with the headings and they 'went to town' on this. After they massacred the newspapers and magazines! We did this during the lunch period. That is a way of getting things done when we have much to be done and as long as the students are having fun, they don't mind using part of their lunch time.

I will post more pictures soon!

Balancing my Time at School...

Anonymous — Sat, 29 Oct 2011 13:24:00 GMT

I will post more pictures soon!

we are on a roll

Anonymous — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 23:18:16 GMT

Last year I felt frustrated about my low increase in scores on vocabulary, so I started making vocabulary cards, using Google Images. (I make two for each word, so that they get used to seeing different images of the same thing for each word.) So far this year we have introduced one vocabulary word each day. Some of our words so far: dolphin, sea horse, zebra, snake….This month we are learning about Fall (and Firefighters), so our words have been leaves, fall, and autumn (the photos for fall and autumn were identical, as they mean the same thing). We will soon be learning apple, acorn, pumpkin, and scarecrow.

The kids love the cards, and are proud to show off the words they know. (I mentioned that 16 of my 20 kids speak English as a second language, right?) In addition to the vocabulary words, we have been learning the colors, with one color celebrated each week. This week was yellow week, and on the Wednesday of each color week, we all wear the special color. I looked fetching in my husband’s oversized yellow polo shirt. I looked particularly fashionable when I topped it off with a crazy yellow crown I made at morning meeting, to inspire the kids to choose the art center today. It worked — pretty soon the room was full of kids with crazy yellow crowns.

So, we know new vocabulary words, and we all know red, blue, and yellow. What else? Well, last week we started learning a letter of the week (I know, I know, many people don’t do that), and so far we know the names and letter sounds for Ss and Oo. The kids practically fizz with excitement about showing me how they know the letter sounds, using the hand motions I taught them.

And the mornings are going smoothly; they know how to listen, how to follow directions, how to take turns, how to clean up, how to line up, and so on. They don’t always do those things perfectly, but they are lovely little citizens all the same.

Phew! One month in, things are looking up. I’m so glad I’m here, and not back there.

either I’m very lucky or I’m some sort of genius

Anonymous — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:53:38 GMT

On Friday we had a visitor who was there to observe one of my students, who is being assessed for possible special ed services. She sat during centers time and watched and took notes.

The art center was full of kids making ants out of black paper and then adding glitter glue to them. This was thrilling, but they managed to stay calm and focused. The usual suspects sat at the lego table, and we had a small bunch working hard at the writing center. I was at the games table playing Go Fish, as I mentioned in my last post. The morning was busy and productive, and the kids were calm and content.

Later, when she was leaving, the visitor said, “You have a really great bunch of kids this year.”

I agreed with her, of course. They are a lovely group of children.

But in my head, I was thinking, “There is a reason they are so busy and happy and well-behaved. There is a reason they have learned so much this year. There is a reason this classroom is so calm and runs so smoothly.”

And that would be me. (I know, modest much?)

all the ways in which I suck as a teacher

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 11:36:59 GMT

Monday rolls around, and I often don’t have my lesson planning done, so I have to wing it.
I don’t keep changing the centers activities to match our theme; it’s so much work and I don’t have the time. Okay, sometimes I do. But not nearly enough.
Sometimes I don’t keep a tight lid on the schedule, and we run out of time for recess.
My desk and all the surfaces around the edges of the room are a mess. I’m not very good about putting things away after I’ve used them.
I don’t come in really early and stay late, the way most truly devoted teachers do. I try to protect my personal and family time, but then I feel like I’m not giving enough time to my work. And it’s impossible to be a really great teacher without putting in lots of unpaid time.
All my blog announcements to the contrary, I still don’t really teach science. I have this amazing water science book I was going to put in action, but haven’t found the time to read the whole *** thing and do all the prep work.
I don’t contact parents nearly often enough.
I don’t always write my weekly newsletter early enough to get it translated into Spanish.

There’s more. I’ll keep ruminating on my failings….

the coming week

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:55:41 GMT

Tomorrow I will try to get up early and get to work early, because I have lots to prepare. We are done with Under the Sea (almost — I forgot to give everyone a real shark tooth to take home, so we will probably read a shark book at story time and then blow their minds by handing out the teeth), and so I will have to take all the books off the shelf and put up new ones, for our Wild Animals theme. I will, of course, label each book’s place on the shelf, so that the kids will know where to put them back when they are done reading them. We’ll probably read this book:

I also need to dig out my zoo animals files, to find the activities and art projects I have used in the past. Somewhere, hopefully in the IKEA box with the files, are my plastic zoo animals, to bring out for play in the block area. I need to go through my iTunes library to find all the songs I’ve got about animals and the zoo. (My son actually came in to wake me up this morning, and sang “Mama’s taking me to the zoo tomorrow” — and we did indeed go to the zoo today. I guess ten year olds still aren’t too old for the zoo.) So yeah, I’ve got to find that Raffi song.

The room needs cleaning up, as well. Tomorow we’ve got some muckety-mucks visiting the school to evaluate us as a whole, and they will be in our classroom in the afternoon, when Miss Mellow is teaching. I’d hate for a messy room to make a bad impression, so that’s on my list.

Because we are still working on counting to five, I will quick make some placemats so that the kids in the house corner can work on setting two, three, or four placemats for “dinner.” We’re going to fingerpaint at art, and I’ve got to find some numeral models to post there so that the children can try to write the numbers in fingerpaint. At the math center we are going to throw a giant die (I would really like to say ‘a giant dice’ but I know that’s only for plurals, argh) and play a game with a simple gameboard that I have to make…tomorrow before school. The new math song for the week (“Three Little Ducks”) has a poster to be located and posted.

I think I will have to stop at my favorite coffee shop on the way, and buy a cup of coffee as big as my head. This is an ambitious list, and I really, really, really hate to get out of bed in the morning if it’s before 7:30.

6 am, here I come.

The child centered classroom: Adding things to do

Anonymous — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 16:42:20 GMT

I have been writing about setting up classrooms over the past few weeks and so far I talked a little bit about setting up furniture and selecting baskets for your shelves. Once you have your baskets, you will certainly need to decide what will go into the baskets. What goes into each basket depends on [...]