To start off the day, Jen and I met up with the other 3rd grade teachers to meet and discuss a few things. I learned I'll be in charge of morning duty on Thursday mornings...what that entails, I don't quite know yet. BUT I'm glad they trust me enough to do it :) We also received a little bit of information about each of our students, very basic info, but helpful none-the-less. After our meeting, Jen and I headed to the 'gifted and talented' coach's room to pick up some free supplies she was giving away! I came away with a crateful of things. I got a few books (I have no clue what they're about, but I can always weed through them when I set up my classroom to see if they're useful or not), some organizers, a money kit, and a few other things.
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| My box of free goodies! |
After finding some freebies, Jen and I headed back to the classroom to finish organizing and decorating. We made them folders, name tags, hung posters, and decorated our own poster for our front door! Jen and I each wrote our own names to show our personalities :) We hung this poster on the outside of the door and the children's names are on separate polka dots surrounding the poster.
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| Our Welcome Poster |
Earlier yesterday Jen told me about a great idea she had to help the kids reflect on each day and also learn to use their calendar skills. We took a copy of the calendar I bought and stapled each month into a folder. At the end of each day, the kid's will write how they felt about their day on the calendar. It'll be sent home so the parents can see some feedback of what happened that day. We'll also send out weekly newsletters. Jen definitely seems like she knows what she's doing when it comes to communicating with the parents, so this is definitely one of the traits I'm excited to pick up on.
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| Our August Calendar Reflection |
My favorite part of today was putting together the classroom treasure box. Jen explained the system she uses for her class and how it's different from the younger grades. Instead of having a weekly treasure box, Jen has a sticker system. The children can earn stickers by engaging in positive behavior and can 'spend' the stickers to buy something out of the treasure box. A child can buy something for 5 stickers or save up and get a bigger prize for 10 stickers. I put the box together today in a new treasure chest Jen bought. Something she added that I loveeee are "passes". These are worth 10 stickers and are simple privileges the children can earn. It definitely brought me back to what's "important" and "cool" at this age, and I really enjoy being reminded how the most trivial things seem to be the coolest things ever.
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The left side is worth 10 stickers (consisting of things like highlighters, teddy bears, Star Wars books, etc)
The right side is worth 5 stickers (pencils, rulers, bookmarks, etc) |
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| My favorite part of the treasure box! : The passes :) |
And FINALLY, we finished decorating our classroom! It's exciting to walk into, and I can't wait to see the kids' and parents' reactions :)
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| The view when you walk into classroom |
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| Our group area. Jen's chair is the white and mine is the blue :) |
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| View from the back of the classroom |
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| Small group area |
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"Our Shining Work": The kids will hang their best work beneath their name on the locker :)
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Overall today was a good day! Tomorrow I'll mostly be in meetings, so not nearly exciting. But TGIF, right?
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