This Week At School

Okay, so my classroom isn't completely put together and finished but I need more time off (because apparently 2 months isn't enough time off) before I go back to school. I'm driving out to a family gathering at the lake this last long weekend and decided I would use today to get my place in order (and do some school stuff I brought home with me) but that doesn't mean my room isn't nearly finished!

So what did I accomplish this week at school?

1)  My first science unit on Simple Machines is completely done.  I put together student books and I even numbered the pages!... I later forgot about this handy technique when I was putting together French books.  Whoops!  Anyways, it feels awesome to have my science unit ready to go... I'll probably give them a test at the end so I just have to make that (I'm also having them do a bigger end of the unit project on Rube Goldberg that I'm looking forward to!

2)  As I alluded to above I also got my first unit in French done.

3)  I have a behaviour game I'm calling "RULEOPOLY" - stay tuned for exactly where I got the idea and how it will work.

4)  I have my first day (possibly week) of activities done and photocopied for my students.

5)  I made them "I'm Through" booklets... basically a booklet of games and things to draw to stretch their thinking (I'm hoping they last 2 months before we have to add more pages to them).  Since these booklets are just for fun I'm also making a couple of booklets of answer keys and they can check their own work.

6)  We are doing interactive math journals this year.  My plan to get them used to the idea is to spend the entire first week of math classes just working in these.

7)  Planned some activities to start filling up the "brainstorming" section of our writing folders

8) Tidied up most of my classroom, made bulletin boards (most are fairly empty because I like using bulletin boards for student work), wrote their names on their writing folders and agendas, moved tables around, and planned where everyone would sit (I still have to make an official seating plan).

9)  Finalized my schedule (as in I decided when we would do ELA, math, science, etc).

So without further ado... my classroom as I left it late Wednesday afternoon:

Left to do:

-  I'm storing a bunch of rulers in a Pringles can... but that's kind of ugly so I'm going to glue some material around it to fancy it up.  

-  Make an example of our first art activity for the first day

-  Organize their first group project (how to stack cups without being able to use your hands to stack them)

-  Tidy up the back of the classroom by the windows.

-  Get my projector, document viewer, and computer all working together.

-  Confirm a time to have computer class

-  Book the laptops for an entire afternoon (or morning)

-  Find (or make) classroom schedule labels so that I can put our schedule on the board every morning.

-  Make a big classroom schedule (and regular sized ones for my students to take home or put in their agendas)

-  There is a cart with a bunch of bins in it between that long table with the carpets on it (that I also have to figure out something to do with) and my desk.  I just need to relabel it for my purposes so that I'm not just putting things in random slots.

-  Go through my French resource posters to find the ones we will use with the first unit.

The list is long so I might be there a little later on Tuesday (Tuesday is also meet the teacher so we are all there a little later anyways).

But I'm looking forward to the year and my new class!