Welcome to Reading... It's Elementary!

Hello, I'm a third grade teacher in a small town in the Northwest corner of Georgia. I've just completed my sixteenth year of teaching. I taught four years in Kindergarten, nine years in first grade, and have been in third grade for three years now. Next year, our school is making the move to departmentalization at our grade level. I have the privilege of teaching reading to all third graders. Having always taught everything, I'm still a little unsure of how this will work. However, I'm willing to try anything once! :)

With all that being said, this blog is my way of working through some of the issues and things that have come up as we make preparations for the 2012-13 school year. We are also implementing CCGPS in Math and Reading/ELA.

The first task was collecting and distributing materials. Our grade level was reduced one position this year, leaving three of us. So, we had to empty out the other classroom. We had things every where! In all three classroom, in the hall, in boxes, baskets, and anything else we found that was empty. I wish I had thought to take a picture! It was a HUGE undertaking! However, we started with Mrs. Science & Social Studies's room (name altered a bit as I haven't spoken with my teammates about this blog idea I will soon though!).  Since our school system moved away from text book adoptions and focused more on trade books to match our standards, we are blessed with an abundance of resources! Thus, we pulled all of our Science and Social Studies materials and began the move! We sorted and grouped topics/standards as we combined everything. It became apparent quickly that we were in serious need of book box labels! Time out for me from sorting! I quickly created some book box labels. Here's a peek at those!


    

If you haven't ever used Phillip Martin's Clip Art, you should check him out.