Kickin' Off 2012!

Today was a fabulous day in ELA.  I have decided to take Clutter Free Classroom's Challenge on organizing the room.  As a first year teacher, I have a lot of stuff, and most of it is leftover from the teacher in the past and I have to admit that it has been quite a task organizing everything so that I fit inside. :)

Anyway, aside from organizational woes, today was an exciting day.  Mostly for 5 reasons.

1.) I saw my kids again.  All 22 were in my ELA today, which was great because I feel like over December my numbers dwindled each day due to illness.  I wasn't too eager to leave my break bliss but seeing them felt exciting.

2.) We're in groups now.  For more on that head over to my Science Blog since I did this will all my Science classes (one of my science sections I also teach a double block of ELA to).  I love groups.  I love big happy tables of chatter.  I'm weird.  I hate when they are super quiet and not interacting with class, each other, the room, materials.  It kind of freaks me out.  So I was so excited that I figured out a way to arrange the big lab tables in a way that works.

3.) This:

I am pretty much in love with this bin.  It's so heavy and durable looking.  It's from Target and was on sale from the holidays since technically it is a drink bucket.  But from 14.99 to like 4.99 on clearance, it became mine.  The last green one too! (my room is green and blue).  Anyway, I was so excited that I found a good use for it.  I am setting up a different area in my room entrance space.  I have all of their Journals in the bin now for when they enter.  I also have a neat project for them on this tomorrow.

4.) We started our new class book, The Cay.  And I love starting books. :)

5.) 2012 Themed Activities.  We did a journal today that was a two column chart with "20 things we will do" on one side and "12 things we won't do" on the other side to make a 2012!  It was cute.  The kids had fun coming up with what they won't do, like "Ride on the road any more because my cousin is crazy and has her license now" and "Go back to Kindergarten."  It was fun.  Our second themed activity was discussing the idiom, "There's no time like the present."  After discussing it, students wrote a paragraph about what they plan to do since there's no better time do start than now!  We then used recycled holiday wrapping paper as a background for our work.  It came out cute and a lot of the kids really got into making their backgrounds neat.  This is my favorite one, and not because it's a great example of a paragraph or because it looks pretty.  It's because he spent SO much time really thinking what he wanted to improve on.  He started off with "playing soccer" and then came to this:

...and I love my job.  The best part is that I know he really means this.  He tries so hard but his disorganized life makes it so hard.

Ok...so I'm glad to be back. :)