Classroom Posters

Before I (well really my wonderful Mother who came to help) started taking posters off my walls, I decided to take some pictures of my "teacher made" ones just incase they got messed up over the summer, or I wanted to recreate them again next year with my students. It is my goal to have less "decorative posters" in the classroom and have more "anchor charts" that I can change out throughout the year. If a poster stays on the wall too long and isn't referred to as a resource by myself or the students, then it just becomes decoration regardless of what information is on it.

 This poster went with our "How to Fill a Bucket" lesson. I noticed that around Spring Break our students started being really short with each other. I found this idea on Pinterest to use the "How to Fill a Bucket" book and then a teaching blog that had the bucket templates on it. Each student made a bucket. Throughout the week, they would write notes to each other thanking a student for doing something nice or filling the bucket by writing a nice note. I would like to start this at the beginning of the year next year, but with more guided templates. Then we could work up to the blank template that we had at the end of this year.
The poster lists ways to "fill a bucket" such as being nice, smiling, giving compliments to others, etc.

This poster was also an idea from Pinterest. However, I changed it for our classroom. The teacher who originally posted this on Pinterest had a different phrase, that I can't quite remember at the moment, but it kinda had a negative twist to it. Part of the "Love and Logic" philosophy is having students solve their own problems. I quite ofter tell my students they are "allowed to do _______ as long as it doesn't cause a problem". To go along with that mindset, I created this poster. In order to be a successful student, they must learn how to solve problems. I felt like this was an appropriate guide or discussion starter to help students understand what being a "problem solver" would look like. I referred to this poster quite often through the year.

I also created a poster that showed the difference between "Problem Solving Independently" or "Need Help with Problem Solving". I don't like to use the word "tattling" and really try my hardest not to use it in my classroom. At some point in a student's life, they are going to need help from others to solve problems. I want to teach my students that there are times when they can problem solve on their own and sometimes they need help to problem solve. It is part of my job as a teacher to help them learn the difference. I forgot to take a picture of this one before I took it down, but I plan to remake it with my students next year as a beginning of the year activity.

This is my "Love and Logic Classroom" poster I created. I use these phrases quite often in my classroom. I also create a separate poster with the school rules and refer to our "Love and Logic Classroom" poster as well. All students sign the poster in agreement for the class expectations through the year. If you have not read "Teaching with Love and Logic" I highly recommend it. It completely changed the way I interacted with my students and significantly reduced my stress level throughout the year. Not to say that it wasn't a challenging year, but Love and Logic gave me some tools to help me through it!

These are my pocket charts for my stations. I had one set for the morning "Reading Group/Literacy Stations" and one set for the afternoon "Math Work Stations". Since our students change for the morning, I couldn't keep one set for both the morning and the afternoon. I haven't completely decided if I am going to do "Literacy Stations" next year. I am reading up on Lucy Caulkin's Reading and Writing Workshop. I may do a mixture of stations and workshop, but I haven't figured out how it would work yet.