Welcome to My Classroom

Here are some examples of items that may be found in my classroom

As a child I always viewed the classroom and school as a magical place.  As I grew older I still viewed the classroom as a magical place but I also grew to respect and cherish that magic.  There is something magical and empowering about learning.  I recently took Shel Silverstein's poem  "Invitation" (Silverstein, Shel. "Invitation." Where the Sidewalk Ends: the Poems & Drawings of Shel Silverstein. New York: Harper and Row, 1974. Print.) and adapted it to my own poem called "If You Are A Learner".  It is something, I hope, truly captures the magic and wonder  my classroom.

 If You Are a Learner

If you are a learner, come in.

If you are a thinker, worker, a kid

A love-er, hope-er a dream chaser

If you’ve ever wished upon a star come sit in my classroom

For we have so much to learn

Come in!

Come in!

Bulletin Boards

New Deal...Possibilities

In my Social Studies Methods class, a complete unit and bulletin board need to be created.  I selected The Great Depression for my topic.  It was developed for a fourth to sixth grade classes.  The Bulletin board has a bowl of soup.  In the bowl of soup are groups of letters, combined to form some of the acronyms that were a part of the New Deal.  Surrounding the bowl are nine spoons.  Next to the spoons are definitions for each acronym. The acronyms are fastened by Velcro, students move the acronyms over to the spoons to match the acronym and definition. Under the directions page, is an answer key for the students to check their own answers.

Book Detectives

  This bulletin board was created to be used with a lesson in which students learn how to use an index of a book.  The bulletin board has hand prints with various page numbers written on them.  Around the bulletin board are topics that may or may not be found in a book.  The handprints are attached to the bulletin board by Velcro. Students move the handprints to the correct topic.  Not all topics are found in the book, in which case there are is a handprint that says "Cannot be found in this book".  Students or the teacher can also remove the book topics and replace it with other topics located in a plastic bag attached with staples to the bulletin board.