The First 3 Weeks

Oh wow, it has been a whirlwind the past 3 weeks! We finally got into our building on August 30th, and I feel like I have not stopped running since then. Our school is BEAUTIFUL! It has some flaws....closest adult restroom is in the office, classroom design not the best to allow easy flow of students, not a lot of space for a classroom full of 9-10 year olds, lack of furniture to allow for group work, etc. It is very obvious that teachers were not asked to serve as consultants to the architect. However, overall, it is a wonderful space and we will learn to make it all work for us as the years go by. Our Smartboards are expected to be installed this week. I am doing a HUGE happy dance for that. It has been tough living without any sort of projection technology for the first 3 weeks. We got 10 boxes of math manipulatives last week, so now I feel like I can be a proper math teacher. It is all falling into place! The students are happy, (most of) the teachers are happy, parents are happy. It will be a great year!

I am attempting to do "Math Workshop" in my class this year. I found some great ideas from a variety of teachers including these two things from TeachersPayTeachers.com:

Math Workshop Rotation Board
First Days of Math Workshop

I know I have not been providing many "fantastically fresh and fun" 4th grade ideas so far, but I will share things soon!!! Until then, thank you for following my blog!

Oh, and here are some pics of my classroom. We have not been given the go-ahead to put things on walls, so it is a bit bare. I have actually changed it up a bit since these pictures were taken.

Tomorrow is THE Day!

Wow, tomorrow is finally our first day of school!!! We spent last week attempting to set up classrooms in a construction zone. On Wednesday, we finally had furniture in the classrooms and Thursday we got our curriculum materials. We are still not at 100% and will live without a gym, school kitchen, or media center for quite some time. We do not have many supplies or manipulatives yet, but they will be unpacked and delivered to us soon. It is going to be quite an adventure, but I am so excited to finally meet my 23 4th graders!!! Here is a picture of my classroom as it looked on Thursday. It is MUCH better now, but still not exactly where I want it to be. Once we get the go-ahead to put things on the wall, I will post my FINISHED picture!