Anchor Charts--2nd Edition

We are a couple weeks into the new school year and everything is going great! Our class of 22 is busy learning routines and procedures and new 4th grade skills. Back to School Night took place this past Thursday and it was wonderful meeting many of our new families. The students were very proud to show off their new classroom to their parents and siblings. I always love overhearing their chatter as they show parents "our meeting area", "my desk and morning work binder", "our classroom library and book tubs", and "the place where we do our attendance and lunch count". They are like little experts already!

One of the new things in our district is the new reading series--Benchmark Literacy. This is far from the traditional basal series of the past. It is always a challenge to get to know something new but I think that once it becomes familiar, it will work well with the balanced literacy framework that's already been in place the last few years. I am no longer following Daily 5 (sad face) but I do think this new program does a good job of setting up the routines and procedures in a way that is similar to Daily 5.

As in the past, this program requires a number of anchor charts to be created and posted in the room for the students to reference throughout the year. If you've followed this blog for awhile now, you know that anchor charts have only become a part of my classroom in the last few years. I would like to share some of the new charts created this past week as part of the new series.

This is a new bulletin board that shows all the Metacognitive and Comprehension Strategies covered in the 4th grade BL curriculum. These are a lot like the CAFE lessons I used in D5. Each week, we focus on one of each. For example, this past week we had whole group lessons on Asking Questions (Metacognitive) and Identifying Main Idea and Supporting Details (Comprehension). We refer to this board almost daily!

The components of Readers' Workshop.

What Readers' Workshop Looks/Sounds Like--
These were things the students came up with and they are pretty spot on. These students are very familiar with the Balanced Literacy framework so they now come in knowing expectations pretty well. We will refer to these often as well.

Turn to your Partner--
These are the prompts and questions we have begun to practice using during our reading discussions. This takes A LOT of practice but it will pay off in dividends later on as the students start to have really rich discussions about what is read!

I'll close this post with a photo of my up-and-coming writing center! It includes posters I began using last year and is still a work in progress--but I'm likin' it so far!

Can't wait to share more information with you soon!

My 2013-2014 Classroom!

It is the eve of a brand new school year and I will be meeting 21 22 brand new 4th graders in about 13 hours! I'm looking forward to the new year. Here is a little tour of my "Pinterest-ified" room--

The view from the door. I have what I call a "pie shaped room"--it's basically like a slice of pie!

My large bulletin board area and half of my library plus the student book bins.

My desk area.

Whole group meeting area and the other half of my library. My books are still arranged by Lexile range but I know the research says not to do it that way. I hope to find the time to redo this system this year.

I've always had my student desks in groups of 4 or 5. I really love this arrangement because we do a lot of small group and partner work and this lends itself well to that. Having fewer students this year allows me to keep an extra desk in the middle of each group for storage. I bought some clearance fabric in a cute pattern to dress it up a bit!

Math morning work chart (Pinterest idea came from Math Workshop Adventures) and writing center (my goal is to get it to look like "The Writer's Eye" featured on Teaming Up to Teach).

Information Wall.

Close up of the behavior chart (switching to the famous color system this year after 10 years of "sticks"!), Homework Brownie points (see here for more info) and my fun magnetic board for tracking where students are.

Another small group meeting area by the sink.

I finally have my 10 class pictures properly hung up! Also, I renamed the 4 student computers after my 4 cats--Bella, Blu, Max and Sadie!

Here's a close-up of the Bella computer--each one includes a picture of the cat. All my cats are black and hard to tell apart unless you're me! I think the kids will enjoy that.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour. I know I love looking at others' classrooms. Here's to a great school year!

The Teacher Binder

So many papers, so little time! But--I am going to share my teacher binder so you can see how I try to keep my "teacher life" organized. I have kept variations of this before but really put together a set system this year after seeing other ideas on Pinterest. I really like the one put together by The Teacher Wife so a lot of my inspiration came from there. Here is the binder--not a fancy front but it is my favorite color.

It looks better when it is open. You will see the FREE lesson plan book I got from Lakeshore Learning this summer and the cute (and FREE) cover page I got from The Curriculum Corner.

I made tabs to divide my binder into the following sections: schedule/calendars,student/parent information, guided reading plans, assessment data, common core checklists, curriculum guides, meetings, and IEPs.

Schedule/Calendars--Our daily schedule and school and district calendars for the year.

Student/Parent Information--I have a sheet with the pertinent contact info for each student in my class, a parent contact log, and a weekly tracking sheet for each student. Another teacher in my building made the tracking sheets and they are great! I keep track of missing assignments, behavior issues and reading goals for each week of the trimester.

Guided Reading Information--Paperwork and plans for my leveled guided reading groups will be housed here when we start this the week of 9/24. We are still building our stamina this week and next!

Assessment Data--My data dissagregation sheets along with all assessment recording forms are kept here. This helps when I plan my lessons.

Common Core Checklists--This is my lifeline this year! I am still feeling my way through CCSS but I took the time over the summer to create these checklists for my grade level team to track when we cover each standard. I have them for sale in my TpT store. There is also a checklist for 5th grade available.

Curriculum Guides--I have mapped out my curriculum for Daily 5, CAFE, Everyday Math and Writing. I keep those guides here.

Meetings--Staff meetings, plan team meetings, committee meetings, etc.! All agendas and notes go here.

IEPs/Behavior Plans--This important paper work is here for quick reference.

Whew! I am really fond of this binder and consider it to be my "school bible". = )