The Classroom is Complete!

The classroom is complete!  As you know, there are three ESL teachers sharing two large classrooms this year. I come from the general education elementary classroom.  I have never had to share a space before and was a little unsure of how it would all work out.  After a week of working on the room, I'm really happy with how it turned out.

The first thing the three of us did was divide the room into thirds.  This way we all had our own space.  Then we used the furniture in the room as dividers.  We tried to build the "walls" as high as possible to give each of us a sense of privacy and our own room.  I didn't take pictures of the other two spaces yet. I'm just getting to know my ESL partners and didn't want to invade their space with my flashing camera.  They don't know how many pictures I take and how attached to my camera I am.......yet.

I took the middle space of the rooms.  I had to get a little creative with creating bulletin boards and spaces for student work.  In the picture above, I covered the back of the bookshelves with butcher paper.  I stuck on some border and taaah-da.......there is my alphabet wall.  The two tables in front of the alphabet wall will be used as a writing area/resource area.  The black bins are labeled with the days of the week. This is where I place all my materials that I will need for each day.  In addition, the bins serve as a resource for teaching students the days of the week.  I don't need a poster because I have my bins.  I love things that serve two or more purposes.  I'm also grateful I saved all of my wall hangings from when I taught first grade five years ago!  I'm now pulling it all back out!  If you notice the lower case letters are highlighted on the alphabet strip.  This is because students in first grade, should recognize and be reminded that they should always use lower case letters.  If they aren't doing it, they should be making the transition.

The blackboards are on a sliding system with tracks, kind of like sliding glass doors.  The blackboard is in pretty bad shape.  I'm not sure how often I will use it.  It might just become a space for me to hang posters and anchor charts.  I did add a border to make it more colorful and pretty.  The green carpet was from my third grade classroom.  I think I will do most of my teaching on the carpet.  I actually prefer to sit on the floor and teach in small groups.  I have my mini white boards and clipboards in bins next to the carpet since this is where I will use them most.

This space is where I placed my table so that I could work with small groups.  Do you see the chairs hiding underneath the table?  Gosh, I sit on them and my knees touch my chin!  I would probably be more comfortable kneeling at the table.  I have pretty long legs, so these chairs aren't great for me. I forgot how tiny K and 1 children are!  The large bookshelf on the bottom is covered with table clothes and stores all of the ESL curriculum materials.  We taped the table clothes on after the velcro wasn't really working.  Then we used thumb tacks because the tape wasn't working.  The thumb tacks did the trick.  My ESL partner purchased the table clothes at the Christmas Tree Shop for about $1.50 each.  I am thinking I might also want to cover the two tan bookshelves as well, but I am not sure with what or how. It's difficult to find a pattern and color that will work well with the pink.  The black piece of furniture is a filing cabinet with the drawers removed.  It's turned so the drawer openings are turned down.  This way both myself and my ESL partner have a magnetic board.

Finally, my desk area.  I have two bulletin boards.  They both extend outwards so that they can be larger, but I thought the square was enough.  The bulletin board to the side of my desk will be used as a space to post resources and information for myself.  The bulletin board behind my desk which currently has a few posters hanging will eventually be used to display student work.  The front of my desk has little cutouts of community helpers.  This will be important when I teach this unit.

This is my materials bin.  I will keep pencils, erasers, markers, crayons, highlighters, scissors, glue, and dry erase markers in here.  Where ever I happen to be working in the room, I can just pick up the materials bin and bring it with me.

How are your classrooms coming along?  Students are back to school on Monday.  I can't wait to meet my new, and wonderful ESL students!

A Binder Costs What?!?!?

I know that I have been blogging a lot about binders lately. However, it's only appropriate since I am trying to organize all of my papers for the beginning of the year.  Smart organization in the beginning, saves time, energy, and frustration later.  Do it right the first time......that's my motto.

When I walk into Staples to buy a new binder, I feel like I'm in teacher heaven!  The entire back wall of Staples is filled from floor to ceiling with colorful, interesting, and organized binders.  It's like a dream.

Today I went to Staples to purchase a new binder to match the color scheme of my assessment binder.  I know, it may be a bit extreme, but it's what I do.  It's what helps me sleep at night.  I stood in the middle of Staples staring at this huge wall of color.  Staring....staring....staring......and my mind started to wonder.  I started thinking about all the binders I could purchase and what they could be used for.  I could get one for student papers, another one for home organization, and what about a purple one for professional development resources.  I started pulling binders off the shelves.  Then I froze.  I was paralyzed, eyes staring blankly, mouth hanging wide open. Panic started to fill my entire body.

These are the next couple of thoughts I had during this moment.

• "You want me to pay what?"  
• "$10 for a plastic 2 inch binder?"
• "This binder better perform magic for $10."

While I was having these thoughts, two women who were mothers were having these same thoughts.  Except, their thoughts were out loud.  The first mother had her 10-year old son with her.  Poor kid. He wanted the fancy blue binder.  She said, "I'm not buying you a $10 binder."  The second mother was looking over a blue brochure trying to identify which binders her son, who was not with her, would need and in what colors.  I'm the person who talks to anyone in a store.  I've had numerous conversations with the grocery store checkout lady about how great greek yogurt is.  Well, when I heard these two women making comments, I couldn't help myself.  First I made the "I know, I can't believe how ridiculously overpriced these binders are" comment to the first mother.  With the second mother, we had a conversation about her blue brochure.  She showed it to me. Inside was a list of all the materials her son would need to start the school year.  He would need four different binders, but not just any binders.  He needed a blue binder, an orange binder, a purple binder, and a red binder.  If those colors could not be purchased than a white binder could be substituted.  She had already ran to Wal-mart and purchased the blue and purple binder.  She couldn't find the other colors, so she stopped at Staples.  She found all the colors she needed, but the problem came when she had to decide what size binder.  See, the school did not specify the size....just the color.  I couldn't help myself and told her I was a teacher and I though the brochure was a little much.  I mean, a binder is a binder.  If you want the binders to match the color you assigned to the subject, place a piece of colored duct tape on it.  That works just as well and is less expensive. She was so stressed. There were so many options.  How could she decide what the teacher wanted.  Note to self: As a teacher, always put yourself in the parents shoes!

Anyway, I felt bad that I couldn't help this mother.  Have you ever realized how many binders there are?  Check it out some time.  There are Durable View, Better View, Economy View, Simply View, and Heavy Duty View binders.  There are EZ-turn, D-Ring, Round Ring, EZD Ring, and Slant-D binders.  There are binders classified by their durability such as Light Use, Frequent Use, and Max Performance.  There are Eco-Conscious and Recycled binders.  There are .5 inch, 1 inch, 1.5 inch, 2 inch, 3 inch, 4 inch, and 5 inch binders.  Every one of those binders are offered in numerous colors. You can imagine the panic in the mother who found an orange binder in just about every one of the choices listed above.  

I went with the 2-inch Heavy Duty, EZD-Ring Binder in Periwinkle.  $10.99 later, I was a happy teacher ready to put together my assessment binder.  See pictures below.  You can download the binder pages at my TPT store.

Assessment Binder Cover Page

Assessment Binder Spine Labels and Divider Labels

Happy teaching and good luck on your search for a great binder!

Let the Organizing Begin!

Heading back to school in two weeks means I am getting my folders, binders, and classroom organized. It's one of my favorite parts about back to school. I might have mentioned this before, but in another life, I would have been a professional organizer!

I'm moving in a few weeks, and I have already started packing. Packing up my apartment doesn't just mean placing things in boxes with bubble wrap. Oh no! It means grouping items, wrapping them neatly in newspaper, packing them tightly in a box, and (my favorite part) labeling the box where it should be placed in the new home. All the labels are color coded and placed on two specific places on the box. One label is placed on the side of the box right in the middle. The second is placed on the front of the box in the upper left hand corner. I also try to label what is in the box the best that I can. My office gets a yellow tag, living room is pink, bedroom is orange, basement is purple, attic is brown, closet is green, and kitchen gets a blue label. Then all of those boxes are stacked neatly in my living room and grouped by the colored label. I'm not kidding. Take a look (ALERT: Poor picture quality, taken with my "old school" iPhone 3GS).

As I prepare for the start of school, one item I have to get organized is my Teacher Binder. My Teacher Binder is everything to me.  Without it, I would be completely lost.  In my Teacher Binder, you will find my weekly lesson plans, a class roster, state/core standards, schedules, substitute registry information, medical information, etc.  This year I will be teaching ESL which will require me to pull groups of students from various classrooms throughout the day, so I know it will be critical for me to be organized and know exactly where I need to be and when.  I do not want to be "that" teacher who shows up ten minutes late to pick up her students.

As I work on my Teacher Binder, I will post the downloads to my TPT store. Here is the cover page for my binder this year.  You can find it HERE at my TPT store for free! I will ask that if you download the Teaching Binder Cover Page that you rate my product and leave some feedback.  It would be greatly appreciated!

Teacher Binder with a Jungle Theme

I also finished my desk today.  I really don't have much of a theme this year in my classroom.  I am just working on the classroom being extremely bright and stylish!  I hope you notice those beautiful Mod-Podge drawers in the background, and the Duct Tape project on my desk.

My Teacher Desk

I would love to hear how your organize your lesson plans and such.  Link up and leave some ideas below or on my Facebook page.  

Good luck to you as you start your school year!

And remember.........

The Back to School Unpacking

It was back to school for me today! I finally moved all of my belongings over to my new classroom in my new building. This year I will be a Cheston Elementary School Cougar. I will be teaching ESL this year. From what I understand, the building primarily uses a pull-out approach. There are three ESL teachers in the building, me being one of them.

The building is pretty old so there is no air conditioning. My nephew Donavin and I sweated it out in a 90 degree room. While I have been pretty spoiled over the past couple of years in a building that was completely gutted and renovated with A/C, I am kind of excited to get back to my "roots". My "roots" are Scott School in Harrisburg, PA. It's the kinda school with hot, humid, heat and critters that crawl around and might surprise you from time to time. It's the building where you don't bring any food into the room for fear it might be gone or nibbled on overnight.

The two other teachers and I are sharing two classrooms. The two classrooms have a divider that can be opened and closed as needed. We will keep the divider open and share these two large classrooms. We are pretty lucky to have such a large space. I have never shared a classroom before, so I am excited to see the results once we have it all set up. Here are the BEFORE photos.

Now, don't panic.  That's not all my stuff.  Remember I am sharing the room with two other teachers!  There is so much we can do with this space.  Wait for the AFTER photos!

Today, I worked on unpacking and putting things away in my desk. I wanted a desktop organizer.  When I went to Target, everything was silver, black, or tan.  Since I don't work in a business office, I wanted something with a bit more flavor.  For some reason, I am really into the bright colors this year.  It really isn't like me, but it's fun.  I've been wanting to do a project with duct tape, but I wasn't sure what.  Finally, something!  Donavin picked out the bright pink duct tape, and I picked out the lamp.  The lamp was my splurge item this year.  It wasn't a good deal, but it was on sale!

Duct Tape Project

What can you do with duct tape?