My Classroom is READY!!!

We now return to our regularly scheduled program; if you are looking for my letter to Dalton McGuinty please click here.

You read it correctly, my classroom is ready!  All I need now are students!  So I think we should take a look around my new beautiful Frog themed FSL classroom.  When students walk into my room this is the area they are welcomed into.   The wooden chair is for my calendar helper and my desk is really just there to hold my computer.

I always start class on the carpet regardless of whether they are grade 1s or grade 8s.  The routine varies a little depending on the grade level but typically we identify the today's date, yesterday's date and tomorrow's date, identify the weather and dress Mr. la grenouille for today's weather and then we practise our "Virelangue de la semaine".  Student absolutely love the tongue twister and are eager to participate in this activity.  It has made a huge difference in their reading and pronunciation.   

  

Here is a close up of my calendar/weather board.  It's difficult to see because of the horrible picture but the tongue twister is right beside the calendar at the top of the board.  

This is my word wall which will most certainly evolve as the year progresses.  My biggest challenge as a Core French teacher, in this area, is putting up the words that all my students need (grade 1 to 8) without it becoming overwhelming and disorganised.  In my opinion, for the word wall to be useful it needs to have high frequency words that students are using regularly and students need to be referencing/interacting with it.  Hence the Boggle board for the beginning of the year: 

On the same bulletin board as my word wall, is my brand new Boggle board.  I must admit I have never had one in my classroom before but my hope is that students will use the words found on the word wall to help them find words in the Boggle board.  (How many French words can you find?) I often have students that finish quickly and this will be one of the learning activities they can selected to do when they have completed their assignment.

 
Students sit in groups in my class to encourage conversation between students in the target language.  This year each table has a frog that is their mascot.  Since I have several classes that sit at these tables, students from all my classes will be trying to come up with a name for their frog and all students will vote for their favourite option.

The last thing I have set up prior to students arriving on the first day of school is my supply table.  I love how neat and tidy it all looks.  

The only thing missing from my classroom is the new guided reading table that will hopefully be arriving in September.  I'll share more pictures when get my guided reading table and some student work up for the open house BBQ!