When I arrived in St. Kitts last year, I had about 4 days to prepare my classroom, get my self together and be ready to teach 1st and 2nd grades (note: I had only ever student taught in elementary school)! What a challenge! Luckily, about half way through the year, I discovered that there are tons of teachers out there that blog, and their resources are AMAZING! They pretty much saved my life and gave me my motivation!
I have decided to try the blogging route and hope that I will be able to share and continue to learn from all of the amazing teachers I have found out there!
The Prep School runs year round..Since we are located on a Vet School campus and that is our purpose for being here, we run on their schedule. Our school year runs from September through June with 15 weeks on (and 1 day off during those 15 weeks) and then 2-3 weeks off in between. From June to August, we operate as a Summer Camp and that means, no summer off! I have been spending a lot of late nights and long afternoons prepping and trying to prepare my classroom while it is still filled with kids!
So far, I am pretty happy with what I have accomplished decorating! I am starting my year off with a Detective Theme. Here is a picture of my bulletin board so far.
Right now, I am working on creating a first week (or two) Detective Packet that will contain a variety of activities like creating Our Class Promise, meeting and getting to know our teacher and classmates, school rules, and many other first week routines! One activity students will be doing is creating a magnifying glass that will go onto the bulletin board! The 'glass' will contain clues about that student, and when you lift the glass, there will be a picture of that student! It will look like this!
I am also going to try to make a BIG deal about of reading this year, so I have found space in my room for a reading corner. I got the idea of tracking reading from The Teacher Wife and have altered mine to Catch the Reading Bug! I created this fun bulletin board (once I get the rest of my class list, I will fill in my missing jars!) and then blew the bugs up and posted them on the wall! My *amazing* summer intern made 25 small pillows for me which will go on the floor and I am going to get a lamp, some christmas lights, a small rug and make a fun 'buggy' reading corner for the kids!
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| I have a bunch of small bugs (the sames ones as the border that will go inside the jars when they have reached 100 minutes!) |
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| This is still a work in progress! |
Here are some other areas in my room - once it is kid free and the school cleaning is all done, I can get some more finalized pictures!
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| Thanks to Step into 2nd Grade with Mrs. Lemon's for the great clock labels! |
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| Our 'small' calendar, jobs and schedule area... And our HWT (handwriting without tears) numbers! |
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| I plan to have a popsicle stick with each students picture to put behind their job each week! |
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| One section of my shelves containing all my Guided Reading Books! |
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| Some great reading strategies I found on TPT! |
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| Our School Mascot is the Turtle and we live in a tropical place, so when I found these great tropical turtle graphics, I thought they'd go great as a little decor with our promise! I created a bunch of circles like the first one that will go in the blank spaces! |
Happy New School Year and a new blog adventure!
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