Back to School Blues

As some of you know, I used to be a 2nd grade teacher. Let me give some background here since you're all dying to know.

Out of college, I primarily worked in corporate marketing. Then when we moved for Patrick's job, I decided to do something I'd wanted to try (thanks to my sister Jenny) - teach. So back to school I went to get my Alternative Teacher's Certification. We were in Texas at the time, and the program I went to was great and only lasted about 6 months. So before I knew it, I was in the classroom! My first job was in 2nd grade, and I loved it. I stayed there for a couple of years, and then we decided to move so Patrick could settle somewhere with his job. We moved just after the school year had started, so there weren't any teaching jobs available. Yes, I had known we were planning on moving, but hadn't actively been seeking a job because....well, because we had "planned" on me staying home with "our baby". However, since said baby hadn't materialized yet, we decided {a little too late for teaching} that I would continue working. So after substituting for awhile and making 10 cents a day next to nothing, I decided to look for a job where I could put my marketing skilllzzz back to work. So that's what I'm doing now, and will continue to do until we bring Baby Martin home.

Yikes - that was long. Shocker. Anyway, the point of this post is...with all the back to school activity going on right now, I'm really missing teaching! I've seen several blogs posting pictures of their classrooms all ready to go, so I thought I'd take a stroll down memory lane and share some pictures from my old classroom. (Which, as it turns out, I don't have near as many good pictures as I wish I did, and there are several things I wish I had pictures of that apparently I never photographed...I MUST get better about this!)

Moving right along...our school required the teachers to decorate their rooms using more of a "home decor" theme - no bright colors, warm & inviting, etc. While at first it took some getting used to, I came to love my room & the basic green & brown theme I decorated in. Welcome to my room!

Here is a close-up of the library area. The green couch you see on the left side of the picture? I scored that for free on the side of the road! Of course I had it thoroughly cleaned, but it was perfect for my kiddos to hang out on and enjoy a good book. :)

Here are the cubbies, Word Wall, & my organizational area. The baskets on the left were labeled as follows: Marvelous Monday, Terrific Tuesday, Wonderful Wednesday, Tremendous Thursday, and Fabulous Friday. (The color system also assisted in another classroom management piece, but I won't bore you with that.) When preparing for the week, I put all the necessary lessons and materials for each day in the basket. A little time spent at the end of the week doing this allowed for a much smoother week the following week!

This served as a supply area, and you can also see our class fish Tuna on the left. The drawers are from Ikea & I painted them brown and labeled them with supplies we often used. There were also two pencil cups labeled sharp & dull. At the end of each day, the "pencil monitor" would sharpen all the dull pencils and place new pencils in the student's pencil spots (an 8 inch piece of trim that had a ridge in it - pencil rested perfectly in it.) This kept the pencil sharpener from whirring all day...a personal pet peeve of mine! :)

Here is a close-up of the job wheel & the descriptions of each job so students could review their job as necessary.

Here is our Math Meeting Board, where we started every day.

Homeworkopoly was a favorite with the kiddos. If they brought their homework back every day, on Friday they got to roll and move their piece around the gameboard.

Organization was something I really tried to teach & assist students with. One piece of that was through a folder I created for them (why don't I have any actual pictures of this?!) called a B.E.A.R., which stood for Being Efficient And Responsible. The cover looked like this:

The inside contained a couple of sheet protectors with the week's assignment sheet, spelling list, behavior log, and a monthly calendar, including the cafeteria menu. I also put labels on the left & right side to help them remember what needs to come back to school, and what could stay at home.

We didn't have class rules necessarily, but practiced Lifelong Guidelines & Life Skills. We also featured a word of the week & quote of the week about that word. This helped reinforce the Life Skills & it was so neat to hear the students incorporate these words into their vocabulary.

Student of the Week was a BIG DEAL in our room. Aside from getting to take Bentley (our class mascot from Build-a-Bear) home, they also got a special chair cover and a few other privileges. I made (& laminated) this poster for the students to fill in information about them.

One of the jobs of the Student of the Week was to change out the agenda board every day. This helped keep the kiddos on track and avoided the, "Mrs. Marrrrtin, what are we doing next??"

Here are some letters I painted to add some subtle color to the room. :)

Here are all 18 of the Life Skills we focused on framed.

One of the student's favorite activities was to perform contraction surgery! It really helped them understand how contractions are formed.
This is another "I wish I had a better picture!!" or actually in this case, a picture at all. This is not even the final version of it - I must have done the final on my school computer! Ugh. So here is a shot of the pdf, b/c that's all I have at this point. I had the students lay in the shape of letters and took pictures to make a custom thank you card to give to those who volunteered in our class or sent materials for an experiment, etc.

To help others be able to easily find our class, we were to display some type of sign outside the door. I designed & laminated some, and put Velcro strips on the back so they could easily be switched out (job for Student of the Week). The main piece says "We have gone to" and the bottom part is interchangeable.

Here are some of the signs for when we weren't in class:

I used a "Classroom Economy" model for my behavior system. As part of it, I made each student a "checkbook" with a ledger to keep track of their debits and credits. The class store would open every other Friday, and they could spend (or save!) their money on items or privileges.

Well that is enough for now but wow that was really long!! Thank you for indulging me. This little stroll down memory lane has been very therapeutic for me. Perhaps it will give me my teaching fix for awhile. Especially when I see pictures of some of those sweet faces that....well, if you've ever been a teacher...you can finish the sentence. :)