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Starting a New School Year

This year, my room has undergone a number of transformations. My Home and School Organization was generous enough to replace my tables and stools. In addition to replacing my existing tables, they bought extra so we now have two tables set aside as flexible work stations. One of those is raised to the height of a standing desk for those kids who prefer to work studying up. My old supply table now sits by the sinks and it is a dedicated messy station for those kids who want to add a little ab ex to their project or when we are printmaking etc.

Of course no such good fortune can happen without some bumps along the way. Initially after the order was approved, there was a miscommunication about who would actually place the order. Consequently we did not order any tables until July. At that point, School Specialty was no longer an option as end of summer is their busy season and the tables I had selected would not be available for about two months. Thankfully, I thought to check Amazon who had something similar in stock and delivered within days (all but one anyways). I decided to get work benches for my classroom. I love an industrial look, but the butcher block top adds just a little bit of warmth to it. Also, since it's real wood, we can always just sand an refinish the tables if something happens to them. With a solid steel frame, and the weight of these tables, I don't have issues with tables wobbling, kids kicking them and shaking the table (which we all know can lead to some serious arguments as someone's drawing is ruined by a shaken table). Here is what I got:


In addition to the new furniture, I always like to start the year with a project that lets kids take ownership over the classroom. I have found that a great way to do that is with a large scale paper mache project. I start building an armature with my first classes. We just use the supply boxes and scrap paper taped together to construct the form.

Then classes start to do paper mache. Each class builds off the work of the students before them. It's a good lesson in team building and compromise as kids work to figure out their priorities for the project and recognize the contributions of others. It is also, convenient because it takes very little instruction to get kids going (which is nice after they spend the first half of class discussing procedures and expectations). It's also a good project because kids start off the year getting a little messy which is always fun and sets the a positive tone while also giving me an opportunity to work on clean up procedures with them on day one.

Last year we made a giant flying saucer. The year before that, we made a castle that occupied about 20% of the room. This year, we are making a pirate ship. In allowing students to take the lead in planning things, I have found some delightful surprises. Kids decided they wanted to make animals on and around the ship. One student had a brilliant bit of inspiration and suggested the captain of the ship should be a peg legged parrot with a tiny pirate on its shoulder.

This is why we need to empower kids to take the lead in their education. They have brilliant ideas just waiting for the opportunity to come to life. It has been two wonderful days of classes, and the project is coming along wonderfully. After three more days, I will have seen every class once, and the project should be done. I will post more pictures after it is completed.




Now that the pirate ship is done, here are some updated photos of the ship and the classroom with all my nice new furniture.

Here is the finished paper cache pirate ship students built in my classroom. Each class built off of the previous class's work and after a week, we went from scraps of cardboard and tape to a full ship.
 
The captain of our vessel is a peg legged part with a pirate on his/her shoulder.
I think we can all agree cupcake canons are the greatest thing we never realized we needed.
Students could never seem to agree if it should be an octopus, squid or kraken, but everyone seemed on board with the idea of a giant sea creature crawling up the side of our ship.
With new tables and stools, this is by far the nicest my classroom has ever looked.
       

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