Yay! It's a New School Year!

I'm so excited to be back at school. This year, I start the wonderful challenge of teaching a 5th grade Language and Literacies class at Kentucky Country Day School. As always, I like to get to know the students and make the classroom a welcoming place for us to share.

I decided to use the All About Me Pennants that I used last school year to get to know students and decorate the classroom. It's a great formative because I learned a lot from favorite colors to spelling and reading abilities. It's an instant way to connect and assess. The pennants also add some color and vibrance to our classroom.

Identity Poems

I've been using my current poetry unit to get to know my students better. This semester, my seventh grade students are starting off with poetry. They completed the "We Wear the Mask" activity last week and ended the week with a variety of self-poems. You can find some templates here. (I Am Poem, Simile Poem, Fingerprint Poem).

Some other self-poems:
 - Soul/Sole Concrete Poem: students trace their foot, cut it out, and fill it with words that represent them.
 - Found Poems: Students search for words in magazines and cut them out to write a poem about themselves.

Bulletin board with Self-Poems.