Calendars, Schedules & Agendas

Since I will be teaching ALL math for 2 different grades this year (this is a first for me and only my second year teaching 5th grade math), I had to re-design my bulletin boards to fit 2 different Calendars for our Calendar Math that goes along with our Singapore "Math in Focus" series.  I really thought calendar last year re-enforced those year-long skills that students needed.  I am not familiar with the 4th grade calendar, but what I have seen so far looks pretty similar to the fifth- just simplified.  Anyway, although the calendars are similar, they focus on different skills at different times throughout the year, so I will need two separate calendars- one for 4th, one for 5th. 

As long as I was re-doing the layout, I thought I might as well change to something that would last a little longer.  So, I exchanged the bulletin board paper for material.  I chose bright orange material to match my curtains that my grandmother made me for my brand new classroom (new building) last year. :)  I kept the same border that matched my orange paper last year.

Here is a picture of my small bulletin board with the curtains:  

... and my new fabric bulletin board with the border from last year. 

I also have a large bulletin board (like two of these out together) in the middle of my room.  I used this bulletin board for the 5th grade calendar last year.  Since I wanted an area to post student achievements and my "Mathematician of the Week" idea that I will share in a later post, I divided the big bulletin board into two areas for calendar.  I used the rest of the orange fabric I bought (I purchased 2 1/2 yards so I had plenty) for one side of the bulletin board.  I wanted the other calendar to be in a different color to contrast the two sides and so I wouldn't have a whole wall of orange plus orange curtains above that.  I chose Kelly Green because I love that color, and it looked good between the orange and with the calendar border.

I chose a border with numbers on it since we will be doing calendar math on this board.  One strip down the middle sets of the two sections wonderfully.

Here is the calendar for 5th grade on the orange side:

Here is a picture of the big bulletin board with the curtains.  The other small bulletin board is on the other side of the right window.  I am glad that I didn't go with ALL orange.

To my small bulletin board, I added a schedule and a student recognition chart.  I plan to put my "Mathematician of the Week" in the empty space above the poster.

On my small whiteboard, I jazzed it up to create an agenda area for my 4 math classes.  I used this last year, and it really helped keep my students, as well as myself, organized.  I laminated the border and placed sticky magnets on the back for easy removal when the board needs a good cleaning.  I love how I had just enough polka dot rectangles left over from the schedule to have one for each class.  I also laminated these and placed magnets on the back.

- ms. charity -