Tis' the Season for cramming before break.. fa la la la la :)

Snowman DOOR, Snowman DOOR!!! How cute you are in my classroom!

Okay for ideas now, cause that's what you want.

Well have been studying the water cycle, and we did a song and anchor chart and so on. Then I had the students write from the point of view of the raindrop, telling someone about their life in the water cycle. I required them to use their vocabulary words. Then they got to color and decorate their raindrop. Here is a pic.

I love his hat and bow tie.

I also change up my class a little bit. Part of our rubric for TAP evaluations is to an classroom environment evaluations. So, I thought I would Jazz it Up! So to speak.

I added this to the wall behind my Guided Reading table, the different color books represent my different reading groups. The are attached to clothes pins. My kids are really enjoying hanging there small group work on them.

I also added these bird clips in the back, to hang up anchor chart. It makes them easy to switch out and I can hang a bunch of them. I have them on my other back wall too! I am obsessed, and my students like to put them up there, it is their new favorite job.

Okay last on promise, out in the hall I did the same thing so that I could hang up those big poster we let the kids make on butcher paper. I don't know about you all, but I can never get them to stick with anything, so you can imagine my excitement when this worked.

Alright tune in soon for our fourth grade Christmas activities: Reindeer, Gingerbread men, and snowmen oh my!!

classroom tour

I have a bunch of post coming because I have a lot to talk about, but I thought I show just a couple of things in my classroom tour!

First up classroom library. My classroom is so small, one of the smallest in our school so I have to make good use of space. So I added some cute lawn chairs and a colorful lamp to make this small, but functional classroom library. The map to the side is the "Learning Takes us Places" map. We add stickers to the map for settings in books, as well as other places we learn about in Social Studies and Science. You can't see it in this picture, but this is also were students find dictionaries to aid them in "Expanding Vocabulary."

This is my word wall to the left and writing center to the right. I thought the best place to place our words is close to wear we right. The green board is Science words, Blue is Reading, and the Orangeish/Red Board is Math words. This coordinates with class folder colors. I do not teach Social Studies that is why there is not a Social Studies Board. This is organized like this because the majority my 4th graders don't need the words organized in ,"ABC," order, it is more important for them to remember their connection to the word. Every week one of my classroom jobs is the word keep. This student has note cards and writes down important words for our word wall and illustrates them. They are revisited and hung up at the end of the week. I feel like it gives them a sense of ownership, and it is one of my most wanted jobs.
The writing center includes note cards, different types of pencils, pens, and paper, as well as dictionaries and thesauruses. To the side of it is the, "Write from the Beginning," steps to help the if they get stuck. This has become a great place for them to, "Work on Writing."

This is my calendar. I have struggled with how to use this. Last year I left the numbers up because I felt like it was important for my kids to figure out what the date was using a calendar how they will see one in everyday life. (Let's face it calenders normally have the numbers already on them) So far I have had a students remove the days that have past and leave the ones that remain, and this month we are adding them to the month instead of removing them. I'll keep you all posted on which I think is the best plan. In the left hand corner of the picture is my class score board. For the past two years I have been adding more and more whole brain teaching into my class. I did the score board last year and my theme was fish so the person we were competing against was called, "Petey the Piranha" this year my theme is Birds so our villain is, "The Evil Dr. Wormwood," if you don't know much about the scoreboard and how it works watch for a later post and I will explain it in detail with more pictures.

Instead of the Daily 5, we do the Daily 4. Partly because of lack of resources since this is only my 3rd year, and more because our reading block is only 90 minutes. Those white things are business card magnets (staples) that I added labels with students names on them. The students grab their book boxes and move their magnet to their choice, so that I don't waste their time writing their choices down before they can move to thier spots. The other board is a Math meeting with the SPI skills spiraling from every strand of math. It is made by using page protector to make it dry erase and so that you can change the skills daily

C.A.F.E board

Class Rules: 1. Follow Directions Quickly 2. Listen when your teacher is talking 3. Respect yourself, Respect others, Respect your School (yes in the picture it says you school, I promise I fixed that) :) 4. Make Smart Choices 5. Be Honest, Be Safe.
These rules have motions that are practice twice a day in the morning and before lunch. It doesn't take, but a minute and save me heart ache as the day goes on.

Well I believe you have probably had enough for now. Hope you come back and keep reading! See you all soon!

Mrs. Beasley
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Open House

So we have had open house this past week and I would like to share some of the things my class featured

So above is the door to my classroom, my theme this year is paisley, polka dots and partridges. So I did a "Partridge Family" door (cause we're a family) with the me being the Mama Partridge and a baby partridge for each kid. I also cut out ovals and used scrapbooking scissors to make them look like cracked eggs, and put them over some left over birds nest from those buddy cut outs that you buy at the teacher store. All with the tag line "Get happy in 4th grade"

This week we have been working with nouns. These spiders had a common noun on the body such as, "spider" and then had proper nouns that matched on each of the eight legs, (i.e. Black Widow, Grand Daddy Long Leg) They were placed on a web with a sign that said, "Our class is weaving webs, of common and proper nouns." This web is drawn on chart paper due to time constraints, but it could be made really cut by twisting bulletin board paper and hot glueing it in a web pattern.

In Science we have been doing the Scientific Method, in addition to a rap that I found on youtube.com to Nelly's "Just a Dream," thank you Mr. Lee!! :) love his songs. We did a simple experiment using apples to help the kids understand controls, varibles, hypothesis, etc. Using and apple slicer you simply cut the apple into equal slices. The question is "What is the best way to keep an apple fresh?" With the student we go over Test subject A, the apple being left out is the control the apple they will be comparing the rest of the apples to. You place the other slices in different containers as the varibles. (i.e. cling wrap, tissue, zip-loc bag, foil). The students then make observations and record data on the color, softness of the apples, etc and graph that information. Finally, the students come to a conclusion on which apple slice remained the most fresh, and see how that compares to their hypothesis. These apples were done in addition to a longer sheet were they log the information I spoke about above. It is just an apple that ask for the control, varibles, and conclusion. They were hung up in the hall under a sign that read, "Hey Newton, How do you like these apples?"

Oh and if you look in some of the pictures you'll notice the borders hanging. At our school we have those paper slider hanging things, but they are just gray so my teammates and I put border in them and then some colorful paper to put behind students work just to jazz it up. (Mrs. Dunlaps idea)

Hope you find these thing helpful, have a happy standard driven year...lol!

Mrs. Beas