Reading Reading Reading!!

This week is going to be a very hectic week, we have a science program tomorrow, a mock FCAT test on Friday and I am being observed on Friday as well, the first time I have been observed in like 8 years ugghhh I really can't stand Mr. Marzano and his ideas of teacher evaluation right now. Anyway, this morning started out hectic and when the morning starts hectic it usually doesn't get much better LOL My students were rowdy this morning as well, I hate the time change, and I thought "Oh boy, this day is going to give me a headache" Thankfully things got better this afternoon and the last 20 minutes of the day were amazing and reminded me how muchI love my job and my kids. 

Before I get into that let me show you my reading rotation board!!! Elizabeth over at Fun in Room 4B created a reading rotation chart as a companion to the Math rotation chart that was created by Clutter Free Classroom  I LOVE my math and reading rotations boards now! (for pictures of my math board check out this post - Math Rotations  or Math Rotations Rock

 This is the entire board - I have my groups set up by color and the kids names are on post-it notes then placed on laminated colored paper, this works great if I need to move a student to a new group. 

 The set Elizabeth made has a header for all 4 areas but since my teacher table and Read to Self center never changes I only needed these 2 pages. I just put the headers onto a pier of card stock, trimmed it and laminated it. That way I can write on it exactly what they are to do for At Your Seat and Enrichment Stations

I put the board right next to my class library

Now, onto my day...

This weekend, my husband and I went to a couple of local Goodwill stores and bought some "new to me" books for my classroom library. We finished up all our work for the day so I was letting my class read silently for the last 30 minutes of the day while I labeled the books and prepared to add them to my class library. My class was still a bit rowdy and were not into their reading much at all so I thought, "Ok I'll tell them about the new books I got and that will kill a little time before we pack up" so I called their attention to me and told them I had gotten some new books and that I wanted to show them what I got. As I started showing them the first couple books I got some "ohhhh"s and one of my students asked if he could have the book I was showing so I said yeah of course and handed it to him, all of a sudden my desk was flooded with my students all asking me for books which I started handing out. By the time they were all goneI on;y had like 5 books left to put on the shelves LOL. All of a sudden the room was silent and I looked up and this is what I saw - 

Isn't that a beautiful sight??? Its one of my favorites!

As I said, it was near the end of the day and at dismissal I was out at car rider duty, which is always such a crazy place, the kids are loud and rowdy and ready to go home. I was standing near the 4th grade car rider waiting area, waiting for my duty to be over so I could get out of the chaos when I glanced over and I saw 2 of my students, who are usually part of the rowdy crowd, sitting on the ground waiting for their car to be called and this is what they were doing:

Another beautiful sight!

Now on to tomorrow, which I hope is a lot more like the last 20 minutes of today LOL