I have been looking forward to this blog post ever since Ashley and Angie announced it live on Periscope weeks ago! I want to make this year my best year of teaching and want to do so much better on my blogging. With that being said, here are some of the bulletin boards I have put up in my *NEW* second grade classroom.
Last year in first grade, we did Calendar Math every day though it is not a 1st grade standard. For me, those 10 minutes were so important for many reasons.
1. It got students into a routine to WRITE the date and sentences about the days of the week each morning for their morning work. My favorite thing (and the kids loved it too) was to look at how well their handwriting improved from August to May. *tear!*
2. We went over Calendar Math together in whole group right before our Math lesson where I incorporated many Math standards along with Science standards. Even before I "officially" taught how to interpret data, my students were very familiar with it because we had been doing it all year. FYI, we didn't get to data until the last month or two of school. We also talked about the weather and temperature and how we could make good educated predictions.
3. Routine, routine, routine. The kids got so used to exactly how Calendar Math went that I used it as a reward coupon where the student would get to be the teacher and lead the class through Calendar Math. They loved it on both sides of getting to lead their peers and having a peer lead them.
4. Those 10 minutes of whole group time got their little brains turning to get ready for a Math lesson. Light bulbs would turn on, and they would be ready to learn.
How did I make this board? The background is a turquoise $1 vinyl tablecloth I got at the Dollar General with purple border that I got at a local teacher store. The calendar was a lucky find that I found in my school's extra supplies/resource room, so it was FREE! The cute chevron calendar stuff was purchased on TPT by Stephanie Cain. The "Today's Number Is..." was made by yours truly. I ordered the little pockets on Amazon. The cute little weather options and "Today's Weather Is:" was a steal of a deal in the dollar spot at Target. The Place Value Chart was a freebie on TPT by Mrs. McDermid. The Weather Chart was a freebie on TPT by Yay-For-PreK.
This is where I will post weekly Spelling words and each week's sight words. The background is a green $1 vinyl tablecloth I got at Dollar General. The purple border was purchased at a local teacher store. The pre-cut letters are from Dollar Tree. The cute little blue chart was a find from the dollar spot at Target.
Last year in first grade, I felt like my kids weren't exposed to vocabulary as much as they should have been. So, this year I am making vocabulary a BIG deal. I used one of my bare whiteboards (that I wasn't going to use anyways) and outlined it with Dollar Tree borders and pre-cut sticky letters.
And for the grand finale, this was my big summer project. For Math, we use Go Math. For Language Arts, we used Wonders. I took important things we cover and used some cute free fonts to print out my headers for each subject. I glued them to scrapbook paper, laminated them, and them put magnetic tape on the back. I did the same thing with what goes with each header as well. I still have to laminate them which is why they are not up fully yet. The chevron border is from a local teacher store and all the letters are from the Dollar Tree.
I try hard to make all my bulletin boards educational, multi-functional, and interactive with the students so that they have a purpose. I have learned that if bulletin boards have no meaning or purpose to the students, then they are just wasting space and the students are losing out on wonderful learning opportunities. I hope you have enjoyed looking at my bulletin boards and hopefully they gave you some inspiration of things you can do in your classroom. I will post updates later on in the year one the bulletin boards are in full use!
