Last Year

 I guess I went MIA last year for... the whole year, but I took pictures of my classroom, and I would like to share them now.

Here was my room at the VERY beginning of the year.  You can't really tell from this picture, but most of those desks are the double wides.  Then some of them are normal (on the left side).  I didn't even have enough desks for  the amount of kids that I would be having.  I had 29 desks, but was getting 32 kids.  Notice the small table up there?  That was my solution.

Here is my reading rug area (although I didn't have a rug over there until a few weeks into school year.)  From here you can see my easel, my stuffed monkey, Markle Sparkle, my library, my calendar, all about me board, white boards, erasers, phonics phones, Journeys instructional cards and a weird hundreds chart (I won't be using that again).  

My library and my Workshop Way philosophy signs (see my Workshop Way post).

Another look at my reading rug area.  Notice the large black couch cushion... great for this year's alternative seating!

Here's my word wall... I got the cute zoo themed alphabet sign from Teachers Notebook.

My 'days of school place value board'.  Got the little holders from the Dollar Tree and just stapled them into the wall!

My wonderful library!  (They don't all have labels yet)

I love this!  I took all of my teaching resource books and put them in a bunch of magazine holders from Ikea.  Then made little labels and put a strip of contact paper across the whole thing.  Only... now as I have had to move rooms this year, the thing does not move well as one giant piece.  I wish I would have just wrapped them individually with contact paper.  Oh well, live and let learn.

Workshop Way puzzles and Thinkers, as well as a puzzle and Thinker lost and found and a book hospital!

This thing is nifty for centers or little activities.  The red cup on top holds like 25 sticks for the "What to do when you are done" problem.  I tell them to "pick a stick" and each stick coincides with a bin.  They take it back to their seats and  complete the activity quietly.  The blue mailbox on top holds Risk Sheets, 5 Across pages, and other Workshop Way tasks.

I set this up later in the year for supplies.  On top you will see The Prince (our pencil sharpener under the blue bucket... it says "Shh!  The Prince is sleeping!) and little containers for spelling words and word wall words.

Finally, I got rid of all the double wide desks and got normal ones!  Not to mention the fact that I lost a lot of kids and ended up with 24!  I put them into groups of four and put the supplies in the middle.  The teams got to pick out the animal team name, and each team was awarded points for appropriate behavior.  Each week the winning team got a trophy to sit at their desks for a whole day and they got to do "window paints" on one of my giant windows.  Quite the crowd pleaser.

Anyway, that was my room last year.  This year it will be very different because there will be NO DESKS!!  I will be doing alternative seating!  Check out my other posts to see how things are progressing!

Workshop Way

Well I have had a very busy summer, between working (mostly) full time at a day care as a full time float teacher (just for extra summer $$$ :)), and switching to a brand new school, attending the required trainings, setting up my new classroom, and just trying to wrap my mind around the philosophy of my new school.

That's not to say that I do not agree with it, or that I do not wish to incorporate the ideals, because it is actually quite the other way around.  I really find the whole thing to be very powerful in theory, beautiful even! It is just that it is very different from many things that I have learned in college, and it is CERTAINLY different from what I saw at my previous public school.  But as I have said in previous posts, I am teaching at a Charter School so they can be a bit more "Out of the Box" when it comes to this type of thing.

It's called Workshop Way (r), and it is based on the work of Grace Pilon.  I just finished a five day training on it, and immediately searched the world wide web for anything, ANYTHING about this program from teachers who have embraced it.  What I found was very vague, limited information that seemed to leave readers more confused than when they started.  Even when I took to the blogging community, it was essentially unheard of.

However, I understand it, at its core, and while it is somewhat confusing at first (and still can be-at times) I really do believe in what the message is here behind this program, and that is that you can't leave Human Growth up to chance.  Meaning, you have to teach students how to live their lives as "fully dignified, intelligent human beings" as Grace Pilon would say.


"It is a way for students to learn how to learn, how to think, and how to manage their lives"

The easiest way to explain this is to take the words straight from her mouth from a quote in an article called The Workshop Way to Student Success.  She says that Workshop way is

"a way for a teacher to organize time, content, and materials so human growth is not left to chance.  It's a way all teachers can give all students the condition that release their remarkable human potentials.  And it works with all students because it does not depend on where students start.  Neither does it depend on prior learning of students or on the background of teachers."

I highly recommend anyone to read the full article above, as it will give you much more information than I can at this time.  Admittedly I still have such limited knowledge on the subject because I have not  taught, or lived rather, this philosophy.

What I can say about it is this.  In my classroom I will be hanging six of the philosophy signs:

Everyone has the right to time to think.


It takes COURAGE to be willing to risk.


We are FREE to make mistakes while learning.


We RESPECT the rights of others.


We don't have to know everything today.


It is intelligent to ask for help.


My students will be familiar with these mantras, and understand them as universal truths inside our classroom.

I will also be setting up tasks for students to be doing independently while I meet with each individual student to listen to their homework, which is a list of vocabulary words and phrases that they read fast in order to develop fluency, word meaning, confidence as a reader, and accountability for studying the list each night.

The homework comes in a pack that my school ordered from the company, as well as the ideas for the tasks.

You can order these items here. 

I will be posting more information about the tasks, homework, and overall climate of my new classroom as everything progresses.  I have a feeling that this year is going to go a lot more smoothly than it has in the past because of this program.  It's all about taking the fear out of taking risks while learning.  We will see how things go!

Please let me know if I have violated any copyright laws with this post, and I will do what I can to fix it!  Like all of my students, I am still learning too!!