What's In My Classroom? (Part 1: Welcome and Favorite Writing Tools)

I don't know about you, but I love online 'room tours.' This trend has been popular on YouTube for many years, I think more particularly in the beauty guru community. They would record themselves as if showing their viewers around their bedroom (Room Tour), apartment (Apartment Tour), and even their bathrooms (What's In My Bathroom?).

I decided to join the bandwagon and do a little online tour of my own, in my classroom.

I know it can be a bit tricky posting things related to your workplace online, especially if you're part of the education industry, but rest assured that nothing here will harm my beneficiaries (i.e., my little kiddos), and all private material (such as full names, grades, portraits, etc.) have either been censored or completely omitted for this entry.

Well, without further ado, here are a few random things you might find interesting in my classroom that you also might want to incorporate in your own study areas, whether you're a classroom or homeschool teacher.

I've divided this topic in two parts. Let me kick things off by showing you the first thing my students and I see and experience upon entering Mrs. Bee's realm...

Clockwise: Door, Bag/Coat Hooks, Calendar, Rug

Hello, Frankie! It's the most wonderful time of the year! Our classroom door is currently a work in progress. It is, obviously, Frankenstein themed, and my students will continue to add Halloween and fall themed decorations such as pumpkins, bats, and spider webs. Of course, we are extra careful about hanging paper decor to comply with fire hazard standards.

First things first: put away your bags and coats! I have always been used to actual cubbies for my students' personal belongings, but all I have now are wall hooks, which I think are even better and add to the warmth and colorful atmosphere in my classroom -- as long as they are organized and neat!

Calendar. Although most 7-year olds have already mastered their calendar skills, I still find it essential to have a visually appealing calendar for them to refer to and for the teacher to further sharpen their knowledge of the months, days, and seasons.

Morning meeting and main instruction area. I am an advocate for instruction that is conducive to learning and friendly to a child's attention span; I find that doing most of my verbal instruction and listening comprehension the criss-cross-apple-sauce-hands-on-your-lap way happens to be the most effective. I am in the process of moving my new SMART Board in this area since I use technology for 95% of my instruction.

Tools for writing! My students each made their own privacy folders for independent writing practice. Second grade is a crucial time for students to learn how to write narratives independently, so we do at least 45 minutes of writing a day. My students are currently practicing with a planning sheet that addresses all aspects of a narrative -- the 5 W's and 1 H (Who, When, Where, What, Why and How). Most of my students still find it a challenge to automatically spell and use words on paper, so I encourage pictures on their planning sheets if they can't think of the word just yet!

What's inside their privacy folders?

(L-R) Feelings Card: Students refer to the pictures to depict the appropriate feeling or emotion for the characters in their stories.

Sound-Spelling Card: This is a great way for students to learn how to independently sound out words and figure out the correct spelling for these words. This basic phonics list includes all learned sounds to their specific letter or combination of letters. This encourages them to decode and encode independently without having to ask time and time again, "Mrs. Bee, how do you spell _____?" during independent writing.

Numbers and Colors: My students are also currently in the process of spelling out numbers and colors correctly, which is good practice and the appropriate standard for formal narrative writing.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of my classroom tour...

Funspiration: The Ugliest Rock

Reading was my absolute favorite subject as a child. I excelled at it as a teenager and took literature electives unrelated to my bachelors during college. I had always dreamed of one day becoming one of the reading and language arts teachers and professors who inspired me to read at least one new book every month and write at least one journal entry each day. Now that I finally get to live that dream, I realized that my strength as a learner back in the day has now become my biggest weakness as a teacher.

Having a child read and write these days is pretty much like pulling teeth. They could always think of something better to do than go through fifteen minutes of D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time. My love for books makes this a much more pressing matter, and I'm always on the lookout for something inspiring enough, not only for my students to sit through the district-required 90 minutes of reading and language arts, but also for myself as a teacher and advocate for the written word.

Last school year, I attended a very fruitful training by Dr. Ben Barron, consultant at Pearson. Our school has been using their company's reading curriculum for over three years, and Dr. Barron shared some wonderful tips and activities that truly made the most out of their reading program. What really caught my attention was "The Ugliest Rock" activity.

"The Ugliest Rock" writing activity is a great way to encourage early readers to independently decode familiar words, comprehend the events in a story, and finally, write their own compositions. It's like hitting two birds with one stone--if you can teach kids to read and write at the same time, those 90 minutes would go by fast.

Here's how you can do it in your own classroom, or at home, if you are homeschooling:

• Build curiosity. Tell them that they are going outside to explore. Questions will be raised. Tell them that today, they are going to search for the ugliest rock.
• Activate their schema. Once outside, before letting them explore on their own, ask them to first think of the things that would make a rock ugly. This will get their brains working on narrowing down their search not just for any rock, but an ugly rock.
• Present a goal. Reveal that once they have found their rocks, the class will get to vote for a winner, i.e., the person who gets the most votes for finding the ugliest rock.
• It's time to explore! Give them about 10-15 minutes to see, feel, and experience their surroundings. More often than not, someone will come up to you and ask if they could also bring back an interesting flower that they found, or a weird looking leaf. Let them do so, but make sure to redirect them to the task at hand.
• When done, gather everything and vote! In our case, five people got equal votes, and I allowed all five of them to be the "winners."
• Build curiosity once again! Tell the class that they are about to be authors of a story. They are now about to write a story about their experience five minutes ago. Let them come up with the title, emphasize the beginning, middle, and end of the story by looking back on specific things that happened (i.e., lining up to go outside, which area in school they decided to explore, other interesting things they brought back, etc.). The teacher will simply write what the students will say on the board, guide the discussion, and encourage healthy debates when necessary.
• When the story is done, have the students read their creation out loud. Put emphasis on the fact that they were the ones who wrote the story, and how great writers they are.
• Print copies for each child to read out loud every day. Familiarity with the text they had written themselves encourages the habit of learning to read, and reading to learn. Not only that, but kids find it very fulfilling and enjoyable to read their own stories!
• Repeat the activity with other themes and ideas, but make sure you allow students to go out, explore, and engage in sensory tasks. At the end of the school year, the kids should have an entire book of short stories they had written themselves!

Reading and writing can be challenging things to teach and train students to appreciate, but with the right learning atmosphere and enthusiasm, these books will eventually turn these muggles into wizards!