Setting Up My First Classroom!

I was busy, busy in July (before I left for the summer) and again at the end of August setting up my very first classroom. As you can see, it was a bit squishy trying to fit seating for 31 little year 3 (grade 2) bodies in my room. 

The silhouette pictures hanging from my ceiling were made on our transition day in July. My new students each wrote a 'self' poem inside the shape of the head and then drew pictures of things they like (or just designs) around the outsides. They looked very cute once all hung up! I double sided the pictures and clipped them up with colourful clothes pegs. 

More desks!
Also, the orange board ready for our classroom rules and children's leaves to create a class tree.

Hard to see, but on the far wall next to the window is our class marble jar (picture). We earn marbles for our class for being excellent as a whole class (each of the marbles has a specific behaviour such as, being complemented by an adult, doing it the first time, working silently, etc.). I will fish it out and take a better picture later.

"We are ravenous readers" reading ladder. Children recorded their reading in their reading logs, and got to move their name up the leaves each time they finished a book.

Our 'Space Race' behaviour management system. Children move up the board for good behaviour and earn house points. Children who reach the 'Golden Globe' planet at the top are sent home with a special certificate for top notch behaviour. Consequently, children move across the board for undesirable behaviour. The first planet to the right is a warning, followed by a timeout in class, a timeout in a partner class, and finally being sent to the head teacher. 

This resource was created by my very lovely coworker, Mrs. T.

My tiny classroom library! This classroom did not have a class library prior to my arrival. It was very important to me that my students had a place to find an interesting book to read within the classroom. Aside from the dictionaries on the bottom and part of the middle row, and a small number of topic related books, the rest of these books I brought with me on the airplane from Canada. Our little library was small enough to separate into fiction, non-fiction, and topic books.

So, there is the whistle stop tour of my classroom from September 2014. If you have any questions about resources you have seen please leave a comment and I will get back to you!

Worldly Wednesday: Germany

Time for another Worldly Wednesday Post.

In April 2014, my friend and I went on a week long holiday to Germany. We stayed with a friend in Hamburg and did some touring around. 

We tried fischbrotchen, which translates into fish bread (fish sandwich).

That afternoon we went to the fairground, DOM.

This is how one spells Melissa in Germany.

This was from an outline of the Beatles in St. Paulie.

Hamburg by night.

 We took the train very early visit Berlin for the day.

This line traces the outline of the former Berlin Wall.

In front of the Brandenburg Gates.

The memorial to the murdered Jews of the holocaust. 

You can walk through the enormous monument.

Stood in front of part of the remaining Berlin Wall

Brandenburg Gate by night.

 We also took a day trip to a small village called Luneburg. It has some of the oldest buildings in Germany because it was one of only a few areas not destroyed during the war.

I hope you enjoyed these pictures from my trip. I can't wait to see what you have been up to!
Please link up below! I will leave the link open for a few days so you have lots of time to post.

When linking up please include the Worldly Wednesday button in your post and link back to this blog.

Sunday Scoop #1

Today I am linking up with Teaching Trio for their Sunday Scoop link party for the first time!

Using a nifty graphic organizer, each week you can list 3 things you HAVE to do, 2 things you HOPE to do, and one thing you are HAPPY to do as a nice intro to your week. I am looking forward to reading what everyone has in store!


Without further a do, here is my Sunday Scoop:

The David's Tea Facebook page has advertised free tea this weekend for a teachers, ECEs, and Teaching Assistants! I need to get myself down there today for some delicious tea!

I hope you all have a lovely rest of your weekend!



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June is for Interviews

March, April and May I must have repressed from my memory, for all I remember is having two weekly recurring supply jobs in the most horrific classes imaginable.

In June, my agency called me with an interview for a job from September to Christmas - covering a maternity leave.

In England a teaching interview involves planning and teaching a lesson, which is observed by the headteacher and whomever else is involved in the hiring process. Afterwards, you have a tour of the school and a sit down interview.

For this interview, I was told to plan any type of lesson I like. As I feel my strength is in literacy, I created a short lesson on parts of speech using one of my favourite poems, The Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll.

I created this notebook presentation go go along with my lesson. Clicking on the picture starts an audio reading of the poem! It takes about 10 seconds for the audio to begin after clicking.

Students searched through the poem to find examples from each part of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs.

 I created differentiated worksheets for the children to fill in, and an extension task. The extension task is quite fun and gets the children to come up with a definition for two of the 'nonsense words' in the poem!

Click here for the resources! (worksheets, success criteria, poem, and poem with support)

Leave me a comment if you found this resource helpful, or if you have any questions about it!

At the end of the interview I was offered a position on the spot! Plus, instead of just working until Christmas, they wanted to hire me to work for the whole school year. I was extremely excited, especially because we had just moved to a new flat that was very close to this school. I would be a year 3 teacher come September.

Here are some snaps of the new flat that I would live in for the next 15 months!

Yes, that is the oven on top of the counter...