Greetings!

Greetings followers!!

My name is Ms. Stuttler and I am a first year teacher. This year, I have the privilege of teaching an awesome group of fourth graders. I have wanted to start a blog to share teaching ideas and lessons learned for quite some time. Stay tuned for more posts!!

I'll start with the beginning of the school year…

I still remember the first time that I stepped foot into my classroom. The walls were empty, bookshelves and cabinets full of old papers, bookshelves falling apart, creaky floorboards, filthy window sills, and I almost started sweating instantly because it was so hot (the school does not have A/C). But, to me, it was the best room that I have ever seen in my entire life. This was my new home. I could instantly imagine this room being filled with color, excitement, and learning! 

Thankfully, my Pinterest boards were already full of decorating themes. After much deliberation, I decided upon a superhero theme.

Door Decoration- 

"WE LEARN 
WHAT'S YOUR SUPERPOWER?"






Ceiling decorations

I went to Party City and found paper lanterns on sale! They also had colorful masks on sale as well! These hanging decorations added an extra superhero feel to the room.

 Classroom library- Little did I know, this would become the favorite spot for my students. Since this picture, my little library has grown and transformed- more pictures to come! My students love to go to our library and read!

Daily Bugle Homework board- The Spiderman was made by printing a Spiderman template onto an overhead transparency and then tracing on red poster board with a black Sharpie. My original plan was to trace it on white boaster board and then color it red. An older, wiser teacher suggested the red poster board to save some effort. : )

News Flash! This bulletin board is used to display weekly newsletters, articles from the local newspaper that feature my students and/or our school, and almost anything else that my students deem "news worthy". The girls planned "Workout Wednesday" during the months of September and October and displayed their flyer on this board. Another student printed pictures from her birthday celebration at school and brought them for our board.

Wall- I teach at a Christian school and try to find ways to display verses and biblical messages quite often. I found this verse and thought that it fit quite well with our theme.
Job Board- "Looks Like A Job For..." I feel that is is necessary to give students roles in the classroom. Each student in my class has a weekly job. I found some great editable name templates on teacherspayteachers.com and used them for the titles of jobs. I stapled the job titles and placed velcro strips beside each one so that each child's name circle could be easily switched each week.
The jobs on the board include: Line leader, Super Prayer, White board cleaner, Chalkboard cleaner, Trash Destroyer, Super Helper, Desk Wiper, Super Sweeper, Sign Keeper, Librarian, and Lunch Card Distributor.

The seating arrangement at the start of the school year was pod groups. Since then, we have had many different arrangements. I found that switching this up every few weeks really helped this group of students.I will post more of the arrangements as separate posts in the coming days.