Hello, brilliant reader!
Today I'll be showing you my mailbox center, student work board, and the calendar area. It should be a short sweet post. Let's get started!
-Mailboxes-
If you don't know how expensive wooden mailboxes are - pray that the teacher before you leaves them for you. I was very lucky to have the previous teacher leave these for me. They had cut name tag stickers with numbers on them that I had to use Goo Gone to get off. As a temporary fix, I used binder clips and a liquid gold marker to put numbers on each box. Unfortunately, I had 24 boxes and received a 25th student in the middle of the year, so he used the orange basked on the side, right on top of my white writing center shelf. On top of the mailboxes, I keep a bowl with extra copies of recent papers that were sent home (I throw out old papers weekly). I also have oldest/youngest-and-only lists that are in clear page protectors and taped to the wall. Our school uses this system to send home papers to students so that families aren't getting multiple copies of certain papers that may only need one per family. Having these lists taped directly above the mailboxes helps me when I need to pass them out.
-Calendar-
There is not a bulletin board on my wall here. Instead, I used contact paper and a chalkboard-esque border (the same one from my main wall) to create a calendar area. I bought a calendar set from a local teacher supply store and supplemented it with dry erase pages (extras from my dry erase clipboards). Calendar supplies are kept on the top shelf of the cubbies to the right. Each morning, the helper of the day sets up the calendar are and adds the date, changes the day of the week o the red sheet, updates the weather based on the temperature and weather predictions from our morning new show, adds a 'one' block to count up the days, and writes the date in word and number form. The helper of the day also gets to sit in the green chair during D.E.A.R. after lunch (which is a huge deal). On the shelf, you can see the stacks of my teacher read-aloud books and the easel with daily poem charts. I hope that this summer I'll be able to find a more suitable shelf, but it was my only option in order to use the shelf that used to be here for my new library.
-Student Work Area-
My original blackboards are on the left (original slate, nonmagnetic). After finding out it was not magnetic, I knew I had to have a dry erase board. I had a friend at work that regularly attended estate sales and happened to hear about one at a school that was closing and paid $48 for it. Woohoo! Believe it or not, the dry erase board alone is 10 feet long! The lovely school custodian installed it for me, although (sadly) I had to technically donate it to the school because now it's permanently mounted, so I can't take it with me if I leave. In this picture, you can see a few student magnetic hooks as well and a few of my dry erase supplies and magnetic spinners.
The magnets were from Target (but I strongly suggest pulling the magnets off first and super gluing them back on, they'll fall off easily otherwise). I cut out small circles from repositionable contact paper, measured out a grid on the board, and stuck a dot on each intersection to help them be even spaces. Then, I put a magnetic clip on top of each dot. That helped the students to know where their clips went when they put their work back. The "Now Showing" banner was made using different clipart I've purchased and piecing it together using Microsoft Office Publisher in order to print it using multiple pages. The banner altogether is roughly 5-6 feet long and is posted directly above the student work portion of the dry erase board. The students are free to change out their work on their personal magnet space (each one has their own) whenever they wish. This makes them accountable and proud of the work they choose to display. My only rule was that it had to be something that was completed in class or in one of their specials (art, library, etc.).
That's all for now! What did you like/dislike about the post? What are some ways that you help students build self esteem in your classroom? Write your answers in the comments below.
Until next time,
Ms. Frisch
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