Wednesday, September 7, 2011

a clean(er) slate.

At the end of the year, my classroom was, like, a pit. It has never been so messy. My first few years of teaching at my site were out of the ol' art cart, so I had gotten extremely organized. Since getting a room of my own a few years ago I have let this organization slide... just a bit.

We had 3 prep days last week before the kiddos arrived and I was able to make major headway uncluttering my space. I got some new labels on images around the room to reinforce vocabulary, got my reading center straightened out and added some new books, redid my bulletin boards, and got my new behavior chart up. All while my 2 year old roamed around, made block towers and painted- on paper, the tables, and herself.

The back cabinets are covered with vocab and images that focus on the elements of art. Above the sink are lists of art words each grade level learns over the course of the year. That part needs to be updated. the words will be added throughout the year and I want to make them bolder and removable.


The fuzzy green thing in this bad photo is one of two comfy chairs for reading when kids finish projects early. The cool colored board next to it gets filled with student projects and the standards, objectives, and  focus artist examples.

This is the board behind my desk. Schedules, gee's bend quilts, a couple of my own images, and my new behavior chart. Classes are expected to stay on task while meeting with me each week. To reinforce this, classes earn a green (100% on task), yellow (85%), or red (70%) card. I keep visual track on the board each time an art class rule is broken. 0-1 they stay on green, 2 they go to yellow, and 3 they go to red. Last year, the class with the most green cards in each grade level earned an extra lesson with me. Due to my schedule this year, I have to revisit the type of reward they earn, but they will get something "cool" for sure.

The room was looking really calm and supportive for visual learning...

and then my first class got to work...

and things got even better:)









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