Mrs. Carter's Class

I have so many things to add to this blog of things I've created and done in the past year.  I chose to go back and try to do them in order as 2010 progressed, so we're going all the way back to August 2010 for this post. 

I am a 3rd grade teacher at a wonderful little school in the Birmingham area. I absolutely adore my job. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that this is what God wants me to do for a living. Every day is different. More days than not are stressful, exhausting, crazy, messy, but not a single day is like the next. I work with a group of people that love kids and pour all of themselves into these children. Its a fun job, sometimes, but it is very difficult. I have gotten attached to so many kids, the hubs has to remind me all the time that we have no room in our house for extra kiddos! I love the kids at my school. For many of them, school is the only normal, constant thing in their lives, and I love knowing that they can trust me to always be at that classroom door at 7:55 each morning.  I pray that I am impacting their little lives for the good and that they can see God through me, my actions, my words, my hugs. 

So, MCS was blessed to have a brand new building built! Our new building is GORGEOUS! And...the nerdy teacher in me was THRILLED beyond words with all those fresh, new counter tops, desks, cubbies, shelves! It was fantastic!  So, I thought I would share some pics of my classroom. This was the theme I chose last year because my Mama and I had made so much for Thatcher's 3rd birthday and I couldn't make myself just throw out all the pirate decorations just because the party was over.  So...Mrs. Carter's class was pirate themed!  Super cute, too, I might add!

My classroom library. I found the net w/ stars at a yard sale for $1.00. The pirate banner Mama made for Thatch's party was cut down to fit over my classroom windows. So cute!

I LOVE that my kids have cubbies! 

Multiplication Island...and incentive we do school wide to encourage our students to learn those multiplication tables! If you pass your test, your pirate stays on the island, if you don't, you drift away on a life raft! The kids love it!

Student's birthdays. They like that everyone knows when their birthday is and I also used this when I taught about making and reading graphs. Multi-functional!

My classroom door. As the students came in on the 1st day of school, they colored and decorated a pirate girl/boy, I laminated them and we added those to the door.

A close-up of the decorations over the cubbies. More of Mama's banner, a treasure map I simply drew out onto a piece of cardboard, and some decorations I found that fit the pirate theme at the Parent-Teacher store.

Behavior incentive. Good behavior all week equals your pirate staying on the island.

That's it! My room was really cute, I thought. No one else in the school had pirates, so that made me love it even more.  This year, its the same, simply because I didn't have the energy or the money to take it all down and redo the room in a new theme at the end of the year.  If I had the money, I would like to do owls this year, but I don't, so it'll stay pirates. Sorry! I'm thinking positively that this year will be a great one! The 2010-2011 school year gave me a run for my money. I had a pretty tough group, but now, after being off for the summer, I can say that I am ready to get back....well...kind of!