Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Classroom Design & Setup: Part 4 (Learning Goals)

Not sure if your district is like mine, but where I teach, we are all about Marzano's Teacher Evaluation Model!!  Our main focus was DQ1, which begins with POSTING CLEAR LEARNING TARGETS AND GOALS!  So, that's what we did! We actually designated an entire wall to it!!  I do have to admit, however, I LOVE this wall!  It's consistent.  It's clear.  It's HARD CORE COMMON CORE!!!  So here is a quick glance at my LEARNING GOAL WALL:


HOW TO GET THIS:
  • Find a Wall or Board!  This is probably the most challenging part of creating this wall... finding space!  Fortunately, when I got my SMART Board, I noticed I never used this white board anyhow.  It was scary to get rid of... but it's worth it!! 
  • Segment Your Board!  The next step is to divide your board up for each subject area.  Black MAGNET tape worked perfectly on our white board!  It stayed up all year long and could withstand the wear and tear of markers and erasing all year.  (Our tape is actually still on the board now waiting for us to redo this board in the fall!)
  • Label Your Sections by Subject!  I have to say, I am the luckiest girl in the world... My MOM did all of these labels for me!!!!  (She is a pro scrapbooker, and I love when she uses my classroom as her scrapbook project!!!)  She used a CRICUT to cut out all of the letters, and then mounted them on construction paper, and matted them with black paper.
    • ***If you are unsure of what a Cricut is... I'm about to ROCK YOUR WORLD!  Remember those Die Cutter Machines?  You know... the ones that made you actually want to DIE!?  You cut construction paper out into squares, found a wooden spongy shape from the tower of shapes, then did a rocking arm workout for EACH AND EVERY SHAPE you had to cut out?!  Well, a Die Cutter is to a Typewriter as a Cricut is to a Computer!  It is a digital Die Cutter Machine!!  You just type in the words you want cut out, feed the paper in, and the machine cuts it out for you!!!  It's AMAZING!!  I linked the Cricut website here if you want to learn more about it!!!

So, here are the labels my AMAZING mother created for me with the use of her Cricut, a paper cutter, and some Rubber Cement!  
  • Then, I used adhesive magnets and put them right on the white board!  
  • Finally, I just used dry erase markers to write in the learning goals and standards each day!!! :-)  
HELPFUL HINT!!!
If possible, keep a ring of all your standards in this area!!!  It is helpful to reference to as you post the learning goals each day!  I bought this one from Really Good Stuff.
OR, you can use the Common Core App!  I referenced that one daily!!!  

Hope this post helps you all become a little more HARD CORE COMMON CORE!!!

~Keep Calm & Branke Bunch On~



4 comments:

  1. Looks awesome. Gotta love the Cricut! I have a Silhouette Cameo that is similar. Awesome and so many possibilities for the classroom.

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    1. Thanks, Sara!!! :-D Cricuts are AMAZING!! You can even use it for fabric and vinyl now! I'm going to have to try that sometime!! :-D

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  2. Oh yeah. I'll have to show you some pics of the projects I've done. Vinyl flowers on my daughter's wall was super easy and fun. That would be easy in the classroom. I haven't tried fabric yet but I do have the fabric blade so I'm all ready!

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  3. OMG YOU ARE A TOTAL PRO!!!! I totally need to add some Vinyl to my classroom! I actually bought Vinyl letters online for my classroom that say "HARD CORE COMMON CORE"... I'll be posting about that soon! :-D I can't wait to hear how the fabric goes!!

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