Hello fellow teachers, it's been a while since my last post. I have been on summer vacation for a month now and I have a month left. What have I been doing this last month? Relaxing!! It's been nice to relax and get some me time in, since it's so hard to come by during the school year. With only a month until school starts back up, I finally feel ready to getting things ready. I have been looking through my Pinterest boards and looking for projects that I never got around to last summer. Even though I love Pinterest, it is hard to manage all those boards. So, in order to keep myself a little more organized and to also share with you some of my summer plans, I figured I could share what I plan on making for the upcoming school year.
Classroom Theme
I have always wanted a theme in my classroom, but I have never really known what I wanted. For the longest time, I wanted a garden theme with little white fences outlining the library. This past year I received a beautiful carpet from DonorsChoose.org that has a lot of blue, green, and brown in it. I automatically thought of this classroom and knew that it would be the perfect theme. My classroom will never look as beautiful as this room, but I would really like to incorporate a few things to tie everything together.
Displaying Student Work
I have an area high up in my classroom where I display picture frames. I like to display special things in the picture frames, but taking the frames off of the wall, removing the plastic front, and putting the work in has become a hassle. I end up keeping the same things in the frames for months. I think this would be a cute way to display their work.
Classroom Decor
I love this banner and I have been wanting one forever. This banner uses the actual book jackets, but I would probably just scan in the book covers and print them out.
Organization
I am all about getting organized this year. I feel like I am a pretty organized person, but when it comes to looking for little odds-and-ends, I am scrambling all around the classroom. Everything in my classroom has a place, but the places are all over the place. My stapler is stored across the room from my staples and that's just one example. I think it's finally time to make a teacher toolbox.
I just found out about this desk apprentice from Staples and I'm really thinking of getting it. It's $45, pretty steep for an organizer. I like the fact that I can hold the rest of the supplies that my teacher tool box can't. It's also a great place for my lesson plans and any other important information I may need. Not a summer project, but definitely a summer purchase.
Last school year I dove into using anchor charts. I've always used charts in some way, but never consistently. This year I plan on using anchor charts a lot more. I never know what to do with an anchor chart after I take it down. Creating some sort of binder or folder that I can refer back to with the students or something they can refer back to on their own would be helpful. I'm also thinking of a way for students to store important anchor charts that I may want to copy for them to leave at their seats.
Last year I bought composition notebooks for my students and I had all these great ideas on how I would use them. Did I use them... no. Well, this year my goal is to put them into action. This helpful tip will save me a lot of stress.
Finally, the last thing I want to get completed, or at least start on is my sub tub. I'm hardly ever absent, but if I am, I don't want to be worrying about making lesson plans last minute. Or worse, I wake up sick and I'm having to lesson plan from home and make my team members copy for me. No fun. This sub tub will leave me prepared for anything.
Those are a few projects I want to work on. Of course I have many more that I want to accomplish, so hopefully once these get completed I can start on a few more. Look forward to blog posts as I go through these projects. If you have any projects this summer that you are going to be working on, I would love to hear what they are.
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