Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Read to Self: Day #1

As part of learning routines and procedures for Daily 5--new to both 5th graders in Room 121 and Mrs.Allen--we began learning about everything Read-to-Self encompasses this afternoon.

We discussed the importance of reading to ourselves: become a better reader, become smarter, learn about new and exciting things, and become more independent. Then we talked about and agreed on behavior expectations during Read-to-Self for both students and teacher.

Here's our first I-chart for Read-to-Self as part of the Daily 5.

When we were finished with our discussion, we had several volunteers demonstrate examples and non-examples for what Read-to-Self looks and sounds like. Myka and Madison were model readers who  made it so easy for the rest of us to match all of the behaviors on our chart to exactly what they were doing. Landon and Caleb showed us exactly what not do by moving around, reading aloud, distracting others by throwing things across the room, and hardly reading anything at all.

With just a couple minutes left of school before the announcements, we were able to practice Read-to-Self as an entire class. It took about 30 seconds for everyone to find a spot and begin actually reading, but they soon got right to work!


Classroom Scavenger Hunt

Today we took our first performance test on reading in the computer lab, but afterward, we finally were able to begin our classroom scavenger hunt to get better acquainted with the room!









Tuesday, August 2, 2011

23 days left!

I've spent all day yesterday and today working on the classroom, and I can't believe there are only 23 days left until the first day of school! While it's been a wonderful summer so far,  I'm really looking forward to the new school year!

Here are a few new pictures of our classroom, which is slowly--but surely--transforming into an incredible learning place for all the upcoming 5th graders in Room 121. Enjoy!

Our school theme this year is "Futures Under Construction," 
so I created this bulletin board to display right outside our classroom



 Reading Space #1: a moon chair, a camping chair, two large pillows, a tiger, a beach chair, and a mini crate seat


Reading Space #2: a moon chair, a crate seat, 
a body pillow seat, and a mini crate seat

Reading Space #3: a crate seat, a giant sea turtle, 
a lounge pillow, and a beach chair