Inside My Classroom

I see students in my school once a week for an hour each, ranging from kindergarten to fifth grade. Our school is very large, and I see about 22 classes a week, totaling around 510 students for me. There is another media teacher who comes once a week to teach the remaining 5 classes and 120 students. I am lucky to see students year after year and build a relationship with them as they go through the grade levels. Each year, I see students for about 39 hours a year, and I try to use my classroom as a break from their regular routine. My classroom is centered around student choice, in both the activities available and the places that students may sit. For most classes, students do not have a seating chart and are able to sit where they feel comfortable. This allows for students to gain skills for working independently and be able to make responsible choices about their peers and location, which will be required as they go into higher education and future careers. In addition to where they sit, students often have the ability to choose what they want to work on after finishing any required work. Below are some pictures of my classroom and more information about how it is structured.

When coming into the classroom, students are greeted with bright colors and eye-catching decor. I strive to make the classroom feel like a welcoming, fun space instead of a boring library. Students walk to the front of the classroom to sit on the couches in front of the smart board for our read aloud and mini-lesson.

Instructional Set-Up

When students come in, they always see their agenda for the day on the board, as well as other helpful information. I start each class with a daily question, which promotes relationships in classes or using computational and logical thinking to solve riddles and jokes. Students enjoy being able to see what we are doing for the day and get all their information at once when they walk into class.

Each class has a Mario character assigned to them, which we use as a form of PBIS to motivate students and keep them reaching expectations. Classes get points each class for working hard, listening well, using respectful words, cleaning up after themselves, and following other general guidelines for school. This works great as a way to keep students invested and have fun in the classroom. As classes level up, they earn rewards and opportunities to do fun things in class.

At the front of the media center, the objectives for each grade level are always on display. This helps show students what they are working on and how our units progress over the year, as well as show younger students what they have to look forward to in the future. Teachers also see this during drop-off and pick-up, so they get an idea of what their classes are up to during their media time.

This choice board with interchangeable signs gives students ideas for what they can do after book checkout, or if they have time after an assignment. Reading is always a choice, and there are a variety of digital and non-digital choices for them to entertain themselves and work on academic/social skills. Choices are added throughout the year, and students are given scaffolding and instruction as new choices are added so that they are able to independently work during this time.

Library Layout

Bins help organize the bookshelves. Popular series and authors are in brightly-labeled bins to help students find books and see covers easier than with just the spine. Books have their call number, a color-coded first letter of the authors last name, and a genre sticker, so students can navigate the shelves independently. Bins are also used in non-fiction section to help organize areas, such as the sports books being sorted into bins by type of sport.

Displays are put on top of the books shelves to highlight important holidays and celebratory months. In this picture, there are books on top to celebrate February as Black History Month. Students love to take books off the top of shelves, so these are chosen as good reads that are educational and engaging for students. Displays are changed out every few weeks, as new holidays and heritage months happen.

Students recommend books for each other, writing reviews and highlighting books they think others will enjoy. Students choose a variety of picture books, graphic novels, and chapter books that hit many grade levels. We do an assignment for this at the beginning of the year, and students can continue to add to it as they discover new and enjoyable books.

STEM

My classroom is full of STEM supplies, with so many choices for students and materials to use during instruction. I am continuing to grow my STEM bins, with things like puzzles, building straws, KEVA planks, board games, Brain Flakes, and more. Students love having hands on materials to use and learn about engineering principles with.

I am very blessed to have a class set of Dash robots that help students learn programming skills and see the physical output of their code in real time. Students work through puzzles and missions through Make Wonder on their Chromebook, and they can also use Dash during choice time if they have learned how to use them already during instruction. These robots are fun and engaging for students from kindergarten all the way through fifth grade.

I also have Code & Go Robot Mice, which are a great screen-free coding introduction for students in younger grades. My younger students love playing with these and learning about sequencing. The mice are easy to learn and work great without the need for Bluetooth or Chromebooks. I've used these with special ed classes, kindergarten through third grade, and even give them a choice for fourth and fifth grade if they have time.

After School Activities

We host a book fair every year at our school, so students and families can get new books and support our media center. Students have a chance to shop during their media time one week, where we learn about counting money, applying sales tax, making conscious buying choices, and more life skills. Giving them a chance to shop without their parents created independent students with an ability to navigate stores and make choices on their own. We also host 1-2 family nights, so that parents can come in and shop alongside their students and purchase books for their whole family.

We also do a used book swap in the spring before summer reading. Families donate books that they are no longer using but are in good condition to be loved by another family. Books are collected throughout the week then sorted into categories for easy finding. All families (even those that didn't donate books) are then invited to come take books for free to read over the summer and enjoy as they move up grade and reading levels. This was a renewable, sustainable solution to get books into kids' hands and not feed into overconsumption as a school. Leftover books at the end of the swap were given to other schools and communities that needed more books.

Makerspace

In the media center, we have a Makerspace to support my classes, as well as the school as a whole. Our makerspace has building supplies, such as hot glue guns, cardboard cutters, duct tape, and more to supplement classroom projects and school-wide constructionism initiatives. Additionally, we get many donated materials from families, such as plastic water bottles, old toys, plastic cups, paper bags, and more, that we used to create sustainable projects and innovations. This room is definitely a favorite of students school-wide!

All images on this page are my own.

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