First Day Eve

It’s here, finally. Tomorrow my students arrive whether I’m ready or not. Or, as my custodian said while clearing the building this Sunday morning of stragglers, “If you’re not ready now, you never will be.” After 5 1/2 work days and 3 hours this morning, I almost made it.  Except for my desk, which is piled dangerously high, the periphery of the room is ready, and the Harmony Hornet agendas are on each desk.  Team boxes are supplied with pencils, white boards, staplers, and markers to complete their nametags and glyphs. My graffiti wall for golden lines is up and ready for the first entry, thanks to Donalyn Miller and The Book Whisperer.  School, team, and birthday bulletin boards are ready for postings.

I have sticks with names for each block, ready to pull for volunteers, jobs, and music selection.  Teams are color coded and ready to have their daily points recorded on the white board.  My ‘Status of the Class’ poster for writing workshop is ready.  My nearly 1500 books are on the new shelves, ready to be checked out. Pillows and chairs are ready for readers.  My room has no windows (last hired gets the dud room) but I have lighting and even found flameless candles with timers at Pier One! http://www.pier1.com/Outdoor-LED-Candles-with-Timers/PS36801,default,pd.html

New this year are a Twitter board, a chat room on http://www.edmodo.com/,  and teaching honors classes!  The Twitter board I got from http://pinterest.com/Twitter Door- have a laminated strip for every child and they get time to tweet about something they learned, liked or happened during school that day! Gets them writing and ties in something they're probably already interested in!Choose 10 students at the end of the block to write a tweet on the door about what they learned that day.  I think it sounds so fun – I hope it actually works!. Also, on edmodo (a facebook-like but safe educational chatboard) students can earn ‘badges’ (you create them) by bringing in papers on time, publishing a story, completing 5 novels, etc.  I think it sounds motivating for 7th graders but we’ll see.

All I need (after I go in early to clear my desk 🙂 is the kids.  I can’t wait.


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