Farrington Thoughts

Can you believe that there are only 12 more days before the start of the new school year? Plus, there are only 5 more days before workshop week begins! Where has the time gone? Either way, it is an exciting time of the year and I am pumped! Today, I went into school for my last time before we have to be there. I should not kid myself by saying the last time, but wishful thinking, right? I got a lot done in my classroom. It was definitely a great day at Farrington Bay.  The view from inside my library... I LOVE how my chapter books are organized by beginning, popular and other chapter books. My students will enjoy reading books from this shelf. My M.A.T.H area is also ready to go. I organized the manipulatives that I need for throughout the year. I am really excited about this area because the materials are organized in a way that students can grab them quickly to begin games. I also have my books ready to go for ADVENTURE math. Here is my guided reading area along with my M

So, I decided to change the math stations from BUILD to MATH. Last year, my students enjoyed BUILD, but we never used the D section of our board as a choice because we did our daily workbook pages together. However, this year, I am going to try MATH. It will give students four (4) choices. I plan on having 3 rounds daily. During the rounds, I will work with small guided math groups. Here is the board for me to write our daily activities for each choice. M- Math with Someone- Students can choose to play buddy games that I will assign based on the skill that we are learning.  A- Adventure Math- Students will be able to complete their daily math journal problem of the day and explore math picture books or math videos via youtube.com.  T- Technology Math- Students will have daily activities to be completed on the iPads. They will be able to access IXL, use different math applications, create videos to explain different concepts and much more! I am excited to incorporate some new ac

I'm Baaaccckkkk! It's been awhile since I last blogged, but I come with good new ideas. Recently, I was able to get into my classroom library to work on my library organization project. You remember when I said I would do that? Well, I have started and I am basically FINISHED! After attending the Sisters Workshop (WHICH I HIGHLY RECOMMEND), I decided to organize my library based on genre and label each bin with a number. That way, I could also label the books in that bin with the number on front and BAM, students know where to return books. I am excited to reveal my library to my students so that they can shop away for books based on their interest level rather than instructional level. I think it will make a huge difference. I got my labels from our brand new reading recovery/literacy specialist. She taught Kindergarten last year and decided to make classroom library bin labels. They are super slick because they can be printed on labels and taped onto the bins easily.  T