I have been reading a few blogs lately about the importance of a focus wall. Simply put it is an area that will hold information for the students in a useable manner. Some walls are full of information and the students never really interact with them except to read them and use as a reference. It is still a focus wall. Other focus walls are interactive, the students help create and maintain the walls. They are tools used by the teacher to help support student learning.
I guess what I have you could consider to be called a Focus Wall. It is a main wall in the classroom and I had to think about how to organize it and what to put there.
This year we are in a brand new school. You know what that may be like. If not, let me inform you, it goes something like this, "Please don't put anything on the walls with tape or glue or other substances that could possibly peel the paint."
Hmm? A magical substance that will not peel the paint? That I have to purchase and use? Might not be anything on my walls at all then! (The price of command strips, removable and repositionable dots, mavalus tape and so on and so forth would be my entire paycheck. Dear Heavens!)
So, I have to make that one bulletin board in my room really count. I don't want something cutesy just for the sake of being cute. I want it to be functional. I want it to be a focal point of my room.
I started by dividing the board into three distinct sections:
1. Word Wall
2. Daily Organization
3. Classroom Management
Word Wall:
I don't have a traditional word wall. I don't have each letter and then the sight words underneath them for the students to just glance at keep going. I have a gifted classroom this year and I just thought about all the words we would be adding to that wall. Can you say overwhelming? I placed notecards in each letter of the alphabet. There are cards for Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies content words. This helps us categorize our words and it will also allow us to add hundreds of words to our wall. The students will get an updated "Personal Word Wall" at the end of each month.
Calendar & Jobs:
In the middle, I have the calendar and the jobs board. This helps me keep the classroom organized and makes sure that I am not having to do everything. With the jobs, I hope to build responsibility and independence. With the calendar, we are working on learning the dates, month, days of the week (spelling, order, planning ahead and looking back).
Classroom Management:
The last part of this board is full of classroom management items. I have the rules right in the middle. I am using the rules that go with Whole Brain Teaching. It is very simple. The students get it and the actions that go with the rules make them easy to remember. If you don't know about whole brain teaching you might want to check out
Chris Biffle at http://www.wholebrainteaching.com/index.php/blog/Chris-Biffle.html?fontstyle=f-smaller
Beside that I have the noise meter. This helps us distinguish between the levels of noise in our classroom. It has a lovely chevron background and I am excited to use it. I am often very loud and the kids tend to pick up that excitement and volume. This will help me have a visual reminder of what type of voice level I need to use as well.
I obtained it through http://www.luckytobeinfirst.com
On the other side of the rules, I have my behavior chart. If you haven't noticed, am using a "game" theme in my room and I wanted to add another game that I know third graders love. I created this myself after looking at a hundred of them on pinterest. It is my first attempt and isn't half bad. It says 'Don't be Sorry, U-No what good behavior looks like." Each section has an Uno card and some message about winning behavior or reversing the behavior path they are on. It is a neat way to keep track of who is moving up and down during the day. I will be using it in conjunction with Class Dojo to monitor student behavior.
I don't know if you can see it well in this picture, but I did put the 7 Habits of Happy Kids on the wall beside this board. I am going to be using the 7 habits in the classroom as part of our morning meetings. I am so excited about the kids taking responsibility for their learning and helping their classmates do the same!
You can learn about the seven habits here: http://seancovey.com/books_7kids.html
You can pick up the posters here: http://www.thirdgradethoughts.com
This is what it looks like altogether. Overall, not bad. It is functional. It is a focus of the room. It will help me stay organized. Not bad!
Do you have a focus wall? What is on it? How do you use to organize your classroom?
TGT
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