2018-2019 Each of us is unique. During the first week of school, my students make their own piece as part of our classroom puzzle to celebrate our differences. When they're finished we put them together, laminate the puzzle, and hang it on a ceiling tile. This represents our class family. | 2019-2020 My goal is to have each school year represented on my ceiling by the end of my teaching career. |
At the beginning of the school year, learning our school and classroom expectations is important. I truly believe that starting the school year off on the same page as a classroom and with a strong foundation in expectations is key for a successful school year. My school has three overarching rules that we follow:
During the first week students work together in small groups to create a short list of rules they think we should follow in our classroom. We then look at all the rules that have been suggested and work to pick those we agree are the most important. When we are building our class rules I try to keep those three school expectations in mind as I guide the class to identify common rules they've brainstormed. Rule #2 was stated by every small group that year, so we kept it as a rule on its own. |
These are our class expectations for the 2019-20 school year and our signatures promising that we will follow our expectations.
In 2019 I added in some new team building activities at the beginning of the year. One of them was the activity known as Zoom. This activity I had done during the second semester of my Masters program at Michigan State University, so I was excited to see how my 2nd graders would fare. They did great! They worked together and were able to compile the images to zoom in and out correctly! This is a picture of them taking a closer look by doing a gallery walk of their work. Other activities were puzzles with their table groups, coloring their puzzle pieces, and a connection game that I tied into our lessons about our brains and how our neurons make connections with the help of our friend, Norman the Neuron (pictured below.) |
Our door is the first thing you'll notice when you reach our classroom. My goal is to use my door to represent who we are as a class family, each year.
For our lengthy winter we went with snowflakes. Each student picked the size paper they would like and learned how to make a snowflake - unique, just like them! |
March is my favorite month of year because it's when I can decorate my door with my students for March is Reading Month! My 2018-19 class chose The Lorax as our book. While I couldn't find my picture of the finished Lorax (I don't know how I don't have one - we left him up the rest of the year!) you can see the students' additions, complete with truffula stumps, singing fish, barbaloots and more! |
We have a Freckle board where we get weekly updates of how hard we're working as a class. We are also keeping a running tally of how hard we've worked throughout the year! Freckle is great because students are motivated to work at their own math levels, we're all unique, just like our hands pictured here, and our learning should reflect that. This board also helps students remember our class code, as well as helping them know which tasks to complete first and second. At the beginning of the school year their routine is to login and do at least one of the two daily fact practices before practicing Base 10 at their diagnostic level. |