Sorting Through the Rubble

Today was as good a day as any to organize my classroom. My wife was in literacy trainings, and the clouds looked (although weren't) threatening. I want to dig into curriculum work, but really want to get through some clutter first. The goal was to take my classroom from assortment of miscellaneous furniture to being an organized assortment of miscellaneous furniture that looks like a classroom. I think I accomplished that goal.

Above are two images of what my classroom looked like post-school year, and post-cleaning. There are a few issues I wanted to resolve. The first I resolved a few weeks before, and can be seen in the first image: put the computers against the wall. When the tables are perpindicular to the wall they jut out, and allow for kids to play with the cords. Who doesn't like to pull out a mouse cord, or unplug a monitor?! The second thing I needed to do was create a space for my student "mailboxes." Perhaps that deserves a second post entirely, but I really struggled with take home mail routines. Kids get returned work or some announcements (usually the latter is once a week) put in their mailboxes, but rarely take them home. My thought was that it was due to the clunky tall blue mailboxes (kinda blurry in the picture on the left) that were positioned away from the door. I needed to rectify that situation!

Above are three shots, from left to right of my classroom (while standing on my desk!). You can see a few things: first is that I created a space by the door for my student take home mail. It is on a rectangular table that used to have two computers on it. In a game called "Musical Table Swap" I took the table in the first image up top (with nothing on it) and put two computers on it, thereby allowing me to move that to the door, and the table by the door to the center table group. I am not sure I'll keep that table there, but I might. I also was able to create space for an extra bookshelf (the far right side of the last picture) by moving it right by the door.

My three big organizational think-abouts for the next few days are: 1) How do I want to execute my student returned work, and mail process? 2) How do I want to use my wallspace effectively this year? and 3) Where can I create more space for new books in my classroom?

Back on the Horse

This afternoon I walked into a local Starbucks in search of a little pick-me-up. I encountered a former co-worker (I was a barista while I was in my t-cert program), and we exchanged hellos, how are yous, and whatnots. He asked what I was doing today, to which I replied, "I spent the morning in my classroom, about 3 1/2 hours or so." He replied, with his face one of puzzlement, "What, are you teaching summer school or something?"

While I have certainly enjoyed a relaxing summer, I've started the process of getting back on the horse. I had a few simple tasks today:

• Take old, tattered, expired books off the shelves to make way for newer books.
• Check to see if school laptop worked better at school than home (startup issues)
• Move some charts and maps from the wall in my search for a better way to utilize wall space
• Look for assessment guide, in particular leveled passages to assess fluency & comprehension.

What I ended up doing, taking up more time than the above items, was documenting some of the books I've been reading this summer. This past year my school district used some of our technology stipend on learning Microsoft's OneNote. In a nutshell, OneNote is a digital binder. We use it for documenting our staff development, and team meetings. I've also used it to document my work with students in reading, using different tabs for each rotation of kids that I would see and placing pages in each tab with the date for my reading conferences. Kids would read while I was script on my laptop, typing notes about fluency or comprehension including areas of growth/struggle.

I decided to employ this for the books I've been reading. Ever read a book, dog ear a page, then wonder what the heck you did that for (when you look back days, weeks, months later?)? Well I haven't totally determined my organizational structure yet, but I have a few pages on different books. I included a brief 2-3 paragraph summary. After that I included page numbers with quotes and questions, things that I might use when I use these books again. While I might not use the questions that I've noted, at least I have a head start the next time I go back to use these books.

I was in my classroom today? Yes I was, and it was good to be back on the horse.

Wall Space

I have what might be one of the largest rooms in the building. Since it was a shared space, used by the 4th and 5th grades, it was a large common room with high ceilings and lots of light. The major downside is that there is little/no wall space. Anchor charts, question charts etc are usually left without a home. I finally moved a giant chart on explorers, as we aren't using it currently. I didn't just fold it up, I moved it to another wall... 8 feet up the wall! Same goes for our posters on the slave trade (which came out great). Room needed to be made for our Questions about the American Revolution... questions need to drive nonfiction (a case could be made for reading as a whole, but that for another day). So we put ours up.

Solid first week back. Next week we really dig deep into the Revolutionary War. I am excited because of the mix of fiction/nonfiction.