Sometimes I feel like a semi-truck...starting up a new year, we have a lot of weight to haul. Most trucks have 9 to 10 gears. This week, I have been in 10th gear... Work Week. However, I sing praises to our principals for allowing all staff to actually WORK in our classrooms. Yahoo!!!!! It has been a very productive week as I was able to set up, clean out, and rework some things. My center system needed a facelift, so I stripped down the old and started to remodel. I incorporate two types of centers into my schedule....Integrated Centers which I call "Spotlight Centers" for I want these areas to
SHINE and Exploratory Centers which I call "Rainbow Centers" because this is a time in our day when students can choose anything under the rainbow to investigate and explore. I used some of my husband's old wood to construct a simple stand...a few nails and you are good to go. Then, with a staple gun, I stapled laminated poster board on the tall standing wood. Next, photographs of the actual center were taped in place. In the past, I have used cute visuals and graphics for centers, but I have discovered photographs are extremely helpful in learning center locations quickly, simply because the photograph looks identical to the center...easy to find in the classroom and helpful for ELL students. Walgreens, Walmart, CVS...run specials on single prints, so it is not costly. For Integrated Centers (Spotlight Centers), I use a color system (i.e. if you sit at the red table, after you complete your Table Time Work, then you visit the centers underneath the red sign). I rotate the colors daily. With the Exploratory Centers (Rainbow Centers), I use the clip system. To visit the center, you must have a clip. If all clips are being used, you make another choice. The centers in the middle are
FREE...no clip needed. Sometimes, I will close a center or add a new one by switching photos out. By using the stand, we can easily spin the stand around to show either side.
Another remodeling project included my calendar board. My goal this year is to work
daily on word problems and strategies. I pushed my Essential Questions over a bit to add the strategy of focus and a working area for modeling. My thinking is to "camp out" on a single word problem for the week. Each day, we will briefly revisit our thinking by pulling out math language. My experience with kindergarteners is they can solve the problem, but they can not verbalize their math thinking...that is what I am after...HOW DO YOU KNOW? and WHAT DO YOU KNOW?
In addition to working on solving word problems and verbalizing math thinking, I am revising my Essential Questions to be "thicker" instead of "thin." I think I will need another notebook and more page protectors.
To end the week, I posted the welcome hall display. Due to the fire code, I have been limited to my paper usage...AW SHUCKS! At the end of the year, I had my students create paintings of things the new kindergarteners would learn...it makes for an easy display and kid friendly. :o)
Now, I have a date with a lawn mower...have a nice weekend!
