This update has been a long time coming, but I am finally done with my room! As a coach, I don’t get a ‘classroom,’ but I do get to place my office in the building’s book room. This is a room where we house our Calkins Units of Study books. Even if it is a glorified warehouse, it’s still “my” room, and it needed some flare. So, at long last, here is my office space!

And where are all these books, you might ask? Here they are!

See the post below for Before Pictures. That 70s yellow was just too sad for me, and I had to brighten it up with more white. I covered my desk in contact paper, covered the walls in white butcher paper, and added as many pops of color as I could. The wall is also covered in book jackets of my favorite elementary read aloud books. I hope you enjoy this fun makeover!

If you have a blog with before/after pics or brag pics of your classroom, I’d love to see! Please link in the comments below 🙂

Tomorrow, the students will arrive. Not all of them, just the 6th graders. We are trying a new thing this year – slow integration and transition. The rest of my students, 7th and 8th graders, will come on Friday.

I am so excited for this new school year! So much is new. I have a new room, a new position (Reading Specialist), a new student population (6-8th grade, not just one grade level), and a renewed sense of drive and purpose.

I’d love to show off my new room! Flexible seating was a major goal this year. Usually, I have 8 table groups for up to 33 students. But this year, I’ll be working with about 5 students at a time. To honor their different learning preferences, I created different seating options within the classroom for them to choose what works best.

Come on in – I’d love to give you the tour!

Building relationships is THE most important aspect of my teaching practice. I get to know my students, and I let them know that I love and appreciate them. Humor also helps.

Here is one flexible seating option in my room

Here is the second flexible seating option. I anticipate using this one the most with my groups of 4-5.

Here is a remake of my Instagram Reading Bulletin Board. It was such a big hit last year, I had to bring it back in the new room! By the end of the year, it will be filled with pictures of my awesome students being awesome 🙂

Here are our individual computer work stations. Each student has his/her own iPad, but as you can imagine, a desktop is preferable in some instances.

I am very proud of this new bulletin board: Fridge Worthy. Since my students (Tier 3 for Reading Interventions) need a major boost in confidence and a huge dose of love, I decided to incorporate this ‘praise board’ of sorts. They can post ANYthing they are proud of – it doesn’t have to be for reading. I’d like them to come into the room and have a feeling of pride and recognition.

Secondly, I have also posted my learning goals and targets for the year. I’ll have another set from which I will select the target(s) of the day and place them prominently on the front board. There aren’t many in my program, but they are all critical.

Oh, and you might have noticed that I chose a name for my new room: THE READING LAB. Zing. It’s gonna be a great year!

Congratulations, Week 29 Survivors! Enjoy these highlights from the week!

1. Elite Eight – The Book Bracket is evolving, and we have selected our Elite Eight! The current contenders are:
* The Lightning Thief
* Crank
* Legend
* Divergent
* Diary of a Wimpy Kid
* The Eleventh Plague
* Catching Fire
* Holes

We will vote again today (Friday) and Monday. I’ll be back on Facebook and the blog to keep you updated!

2. DVD Project Display – I finished another display of my students’ DVD Case Projects. We have such a beautiful case to display their amazing work!

3. And Isn’t it Ironic? – I taught my students about Irony this week. We even listened to the Alanis Morisette song “Ironic” and discussed how none of the examples in the song is actually irony (with the exception of Mr. Play-it-Safe saying, “Well isn’t this nice?”), and how the real irony of the song is the inappropriate name. It should be named, “Unfortunate Circumstances,” which would be a much more fitting title. Anyway, it was fun to watch their heads spin and churn and wrap themselves around this new concept. Like little light bulbs popping on one at a time. We had a good time and a good laugh! If you want to download the handout I used, I’ll put it up on TpT this weekend!

4. Neck…less? We’re reading the story “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant. I had to draw this on the board this week because, well, isn’t it obvious? They were so oblivious of their own spelling errors that they didn’t even ‘see’ it at first. Yes, ‘necklace’ and ‘neckless’ ARE 2 different words!

5. Healthy Eats – If you’ve been following this blog, then you know I loves my food, and I am trying my best to eat healthfully. My favorite quote about food is, “The food you eat can be either the safest and most powerful form of medicine or the slowest form of poison” – Ann Wigmore. I truly believe that. You are what you eat, and I want to be very mindful of what I put in my body. My husband bought us a juicer for my birthday, and we have been having so much fun juicing for breakfast! I tell him we’re ‘drinking the rainbow,’ haha! And the foods pictured above are from my weekly Sunday Cook-a-thon. This week I made Grain-free Cookie Bars, Veggie Stir Fry, Fire-Roasted Slow-Cooker Meatloaf, Teriyaki and Veggie Stir Fry, and Zoodles, as well as our weekly Veggie-Egg Muffins for breakfast (all dairy-free, grain-free – Paleo). Add the daily juicing, and we are in good shape! By the way – I’m totally new to the juicing scene. If you have a favorite ‘recipe,’ I’m dying to learn more! Please leave a comment below!