It's Back to School Time!

Wow, summer flies by faster every year and this summer seemed to be shorter than ever. I had a fantastic summer filled with traveling and learning and relaxing. School starts on Wednesday of this week and I have been very busy getting my room ready. This is my 21st year of teaching at Hill City School so you would think getting ready for a new school year would be easy and fast. This is definitely not the case. I am always changing things - hopefully for the better. It makes my job more interesting, at the very least.

Here are some glimpses of my classroom.

This is our word wall. All our spelling words get put here for the
students to refer to as they write. The comfy chair is called
 "Grandma's Chair" because I got it from my Grandma Thea.

All our art supplies are located in the Art Center. Each month
students can do different art activities for extra credit.

Each student has a Reader's Workshop binder. Students will record the
books they read, responses to these books,
and will store mini-lesson handouts in these binders.

Students hand all their work into these drawers.

This is my desk area.

I have a large library in my room. There should be no excuse
 for not finding a book to read!

This is an old bookshelf I had in my basement. I added a new
coat of paint this summer and now it holds our genre of the month
 books, award winning books, and my favorite books.

Science is my favorite subject and so this area of the room
 will soon be bursting with live (and dead) critters.

Students have the opportunity to hold jobs each month.
These jobs will earn them money for MagnerMart.

Students will write an "exit ticket" each day before they leave. This will be an answer to a question I give them and will be their "Ticket out the Door." 

Besides novels, we will be reading a lot of picture books this year.
 I call these "mentor texts" and we use them to learn
about the craft of reading and writing.

Everything we do in 5th grade is in our Learning Goals that are
directly related to our state and the common core standards.
The students will be aware of each goal as we start a lesson
 and the goals will be placed on this board for all to see.

Welcome to 5th Grade!