For your viewing pleasure....

This is by far the lamest picture of the bunch. It can't be helped. I'm in the process of setting up two more centers-- the code breaking one will be full of math, actual codes and ciphers, and words they have to decode for reading comprehension, plus strategies to do so. I like to mix the subjects in the centers if I can. The unsolved mystery one is on a similar curiosity driven theme, and will feature such mysteries as crop circles, Stonehenge, the Bermuda Triangle, Nessie, Easter Island, Roanoke, alien abduction, hauntings and more! Wooo! How's that for fun?






This next picture shows my teeny windows (thank the great flying fish for them-- the AZ sun is KILLER!) You can see the start of my Travellin' Through Space and Time Center. Again... more exploring and fun!






Here's a shot of my Reading Rainforest. The four levels of the rainforest double as a learning tool-- those that read 1 book a month are on the forest floor, those who read 2 are in the understory, 3 are in the canopy, and 4 a month are my emergent level readers. I know, I know. Emergent readers are those people who are just starting to learn to read. But it's the highest level of the rainforest! So... that's that. If you look on the right you'll see Louie, my chameleon puppet. He's a hit. The only sad thing? I don't have NEARLY enough books!!




My skeleton has lost his jaw. Plus several teeth. And an arm. He's not doing so well. My globe isn't either. Apparently the sub broke it. Sad, sad, sad.



You will notice that my prized possession-- my little blue elephant-- sits on my desk. My CLEAN desk. It's clean and gorgeous until, say, 2:00. Then, somehow, everything explodes.
Behind my desk, on the right you can see my art wall area, and an area for the student of the week and daily student awards.




A view from the back. I had the kids in rows. Rows are rotten. Then I switched it to groups, because kids learn better that way. They also talk more that way. So I switched them to groupy-rows. Its working well so far AND I still have plenty of space to walk.

The white board on the far right is NOT a regular white board. Its a SmartBoard. It hooks up to the LCD projector, so we can watch movies on it (oh yeah). ALSO, any webpage I pull up on my computer, I can project automatically onto the screen. As a super awesome added bonus-- its touch sensitive. I can write, draw, or type right ON THE SCREEN. How amazing is that?


Well, that's all for now! I'll try my best to keep posting.... I've been spending 12 hours at school, then coming home, working a few more hours, and then just passing out. My kids always ask me what fun things I did over the weekend, and I just kind of laugh at them. It's okay though. They laugh at me the rest of the time. :)