Back to School!

Lots of teachers are putting the final touches on their rooms for the 1st Day of School. I'm not huge on different bulletin boards because I'm horrible about changing them throughout the year. Below are some pictures of my classroom.

 

 

I teach reading and social studies this year, but I wanted to support students learning in all areas. I found the digital times on Pinterest. Then I made the other clocks to show significant times throughout the day.

 

 

 

 

These are my Love and Logic Posters. I had to re-do them from last year as my originals got damaged over the summer. Boo. But I like this one better I think!

 

 

 

 

This is my Classroom Management Book. It's a binder with all my conduct management information. I got this idea from the Turn Around Schools: No Excuses University Institute I attended in Dallas this summer.

 

 

This is the Classroom Management Plan all of 3rd grade (and the campus) will be following this year.

 

 

Here is a picture of our Rethinking Letter

 

 

 

And of course the Love and Logic Classroom goes in the front of our notebook! I'm combining ideas from 2 of the best workshops I've been to thus far in my teaching career.

 

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.

Love And Logic

"Teaching with Love and Logic" has become a staple in my classroom. I really don't think I would have managed and been successful over the past year without it. I've heard some people say that teaching gets easier as you go along. While some aspects have become easier, I feel that each year I have been challenged in new ways to improve my interactions with students and therefore improving learning.

I've also heard some teachers say that L&L was natural to them and was apart of their classroom before they could label it as such. Not for me. It wasn't until last year that I was sent to a L&L workshop that I really began to look at how I interacted with my students. I was never mean or anything, I just felt like sometimes I was carrying all their issues and they never had any responsibility for their actions. The whole warning and conduct mark system just didn't work.

I continue to use a conduct mark system in my room as that is part of our communication with parents on the daily interactions within our classroom. However now I try to focus more on the behaviors and the problem that is causing the behavior.

If you're a teacher and you've never heard of Love and Logic I cannot recommend their materials enough. They have books, audio CDs and even clips on you tube about working with children. This includes information for parents!

In the future I plan to blog more about how L&L has helped me become a better teacher. Im still learning and changing the way I think about discipline and classroom management. I feel as if all universities should add a L&L management course (or at the very least a book) to their curriculum.

So go check it out!