A look at the new classroom

The first day of school is tomorrow, and I already feel much farther ahead than I did at this time last year.  Amanda and I still hadn't arrived in Kuwait yet, and we wouldn't for another 6 hours or so.  The day before school started.  Eek.

My classroom is coming along nicely though, and I am really excited to get all of my plans started.  I've included a few pictures of the current set-up.  Let me know what you think! *The banquet chairs are not staying...our plastic chairs haven't arrived yet*

This is my "Crafting" centre.  The numbered and coloured folders tell the students which part they are on.  The folders contain the activities themselves. If they are just beginning the skill than they start with orange/one and move on from there.  The tree diagram on the shows the process.  Click here to see it up close.

Here is my missed work wall.  The days of the week are listed at the top, and the grades below.  If a student misses a day or more (up to a week) they will find all activities in the corresponding folder for the day(s) they missed.  It might seem like a lot of folders where 3 (for each grade) would do the trick, but I think this will be easy in the long run.  I won't have jumbled pages and the kids will know exactly where to go based on the day they missed.  After a week I will pull out all material, and the students will have to come directly to me for the information.  On the right you can see the words Powers, Galaxy, and Midgard. These are the names of the narratives we will be weaving in those grades.  Powers has a superhero theme, Galaxy has a space theme, and Midgard has a fantasy theme.

I have decided to implement a hand signal program in my classes.  It may seem a bit juvenile, but I taught these students last year and it was a constant struggle to keep them from blurting out whatever came to their mind.  I've seen the signals made with more gestures, but I feel that these four sum up the majority of the reasons a student needs to yell out.  I got the simple hand designs from IIT Bombay.

My desk and whiteboard.  I'm going to hang up some pictures in that corner in a week, so that it creates more of a "get to know Mr. Phillips" vibe.

These are located right beside the door in case students ever need a quick refresher.  I will talk about both of these programs in more detail later.

The view of the room as you enter.  It will be interesting to see how this has changed when June rolls around.