Ideas for my classroom

So! Here are some things I have thought of for my classroom. I do not know what my schedule is yet or what is taught (I'm not sure if there is any Social Studies - I remember talking to my dad about it and we think it doesn't start that early.. but who knows anymore) other than the basic subjects.


DISCIPLINE CHART

I knew I was going to do some sort of chart for my discipline since I really loved the idea of students beginning at a middle ground and being able to go up or down. This also gave chances for students to be recognized for their great behavior and for ones who might have a few slip ups to gain their spots back. However, when I saw my former supervising teacher did an updated version of it from and took a liking to it.

However, I wanted to put my own twist on it. I decided to change the some of the wording on the chart to reflect the mascot of our school - plus, I thought it was just cute. I got it laminated and it looks great now!

My only problem is trying to decide what system I want to use towards it. I like the fact it really concentrates on intrinsic than extrinsic rewards - that's what really motivates a student in my opinion. I remember reading countless things on it while at UCF. The decorating of the clip when they reach to "Star Bee" I like and getting a new color clip. I guess I'm just debating whether I want it to reset every day or every week. I like every week better since it gives students time to climb up. I feel like if it was just in a day, they wouldn't stand much of a chance.


DAILY 5
One thing I am happy about with my employment at Citrus is that apparently, a lot of teachers use Daily 5! I remember when telling about it in my interview, the principal had noted that a lot of teachers use it but she herself has not yet began to read it. I am glad I ran in to it in my former supervising teacher's classroom because I was pretty clueless on how to do centers. In my junior internship in a 4th grade classroom, she did not do centers and then in my 2nd grade placement .. um, well, it was more of a mess than anything.

I know the different areas that I want are: Read to Self, Read with Someone, Computer, Work on Writing and Teacher Table. Now, with Work on Writing.. I think it might turn in to a Work on Writing / Word Work. There is a part of me that just wants to focus on Word Work though. There will be play-doh, magnetic letters, white boards and such so they can practice their spelling words or even work on their various sounds (like -at). Maybe as the year progresses, I'll squeeze Work on Writing since they really are just beginning to write.

Just a little shaky on that, but I'm sure when I meet with my team, it'll help a bit more to see what they do and such!


WORD WALL



The Word Wall is something I am very excited about! I want to make sure to keep it up to date because I've noticed (sometimes) when teachers get busy, this is the first thing to kind of take it by the waste side. I think it's really important for those words to be shown for them and I like I said, I'll try and make sure to have it up to date as much as I can.


MORNING WORK
I'm going to be ordering this book on Monday (you know, when my bank account looks a bit better since it looks so grave at the moment.. we need Andy's work check to go through lol). It's called Getting the Most Out of Morning Message and Other Shared Writing Lessons (Grades K-2) by Carleen Dacrus Payne & Mary Browning Schulman (http://alysiabattista.blogspot.com/).

I always knew that no matter what, the students will always have something to work on when they come in in the morning. You're just asking for chaos if you don't. The morning work will either be them writing a story about a topic I put on the board, a math worksheet or a morning message. Most times than not, I'll probably do a morning message.

This is when I will deliberately misspell and not capitalize or use correct punctuation. The students will have to point out my mistakes, along with rewriting it the correct way. I also realized I can use this to have students point out sounds and all sorts of things if it went along with the weeks curriculum and such.



That's all I can think of right now.. I've got to follow some blogs and such to get some more ideas; but there is a part of me that doesn't because it makes me feel so much more overwhelmed sometimes! I have to remember that these are things I can keep in mind for later in the year or for next year :).

I'll be taking pictures tomorrow of my classroom in it's current chaos and as it improves over the days. I just really want to get my classroom done before the 18th because that is Meet the Teacher night. I want a nice, colorful and welcoming classroom.. let's see how well it comes out!