The Happy Learning Den: New Year, New Grade, & New Adventures!

Hi Everyone,
I cannot believe summer is over and I have already begun the process of setting up my classroom. I am going to miss my weeks of relaxation, pajamas, and no alarm clocks. Next you will tell me Target has their Halloween decorations on display.

However, I am ready for my new adventure! This year I will be departmentalizing. I will be teaching Math and Science all day, and another teacher will be teaching English Language Arts (ELA) and Social Studies. We will share our students, and the students will be switching between our 2 classes each day. I'm nervous and excited at the same time!

New Year. New Grade. New Students. New Challenges. New Adventures.

For the past 8 years I taught 3rd grade in an enormous classroom. Of course, I didn't realize it was enormous until I tried setting up my new classroom last week. It is significantly smaller- at least half the size of my old class, and the students in my class this year are bigger! Even though I will only be teaching math and science, I still need to have a library. So instead of having 3 bookshelves with baskets galore of books, I have 2 bookcases. One shelf is dedicated to nonfiction math and nonfiction science books, but I still have baskets of novels for students to enjoy. Every few months I switch out the books that are in the baskets and trade them with other books that are hidden in a closet. Here is a photo of my classroom library that I setup last week.

The taller bookcase has the book baskets. The other bookcase has the ScienceSaurus's and the class set of dictionaries that students will use throughout the year. The area shown next to the sink will contain science centers that students will be able to take to their seats or to another area in the room. Next week I will figure out which centers will be placed there, but first I needed to focus on the physical layout of the room.

I have limited wall space and limited bulletin boards in my new classroom, but of course I am bursting with BIG IDEAS! One of the biggest ideas so far came from an epiphany I had during a science professional development workshop over the summer. Stay with me here... The instructor had asked the teachers in the room who used a KWL (what you know, what you want to know, and what you learned) organizer with their students throughout our years of teaching. Of course all of us raised our hands... We discussed the pitfalls of using the KWL chart, and then he demonstrated a revolutionary idea- so maybe it's not revolutionary because it's been around for a while, but I did get my epiphany from it. He had all of us teachers write on a Post-It note what we "know" about pencils. Then we all put our post-its into the "What I Think I Know" column. Next he had us watch a video about how pencils are made. We revisited the RAN chart and discussed each item written on the Post-It notes. The ones with true facts about pencils were placed in the "confirmed" column and the ones that were not true were placed in the "misconceptions" column. So much better than a KWL chart because so often students think they know it, but in reality they haven't a clue, right? :-)
This is thrilling to me, and with the help of one of my colleagues I made a huge RAN chart in my classroom. We will be using this chart all year, starting with the first day of school. Before we get into any procedures and my getting to know you activities, students will each write one thing that they think they know about me and place it in the "What I think I know" column. Once all students have posted their thoughts, I will read through them and place them in either the "misconceptions" column or in the "confirmed" column. During the day, students will have a chance to write what they are still wondering about me on Post-Its and place them on the RAN Chart as well. Here is a photo of the RAN chart: