Alive and Motivated

It has been officially over a MONTH since I blogged last.  I am so sorry.  But let me be very honest with you.  I had zero, zilch, nada, nothing to say. And I was pretty down on myself. As a first year teacher I am feeling the stress and pain of beginning this profession.  Most days, I feel like I am barely getting by.  So coming home and blogging is not on the top of my to do list!  Plus, I have been questioning why anyone would want to listen to what a youngin' like me would have to say anyway.

BUT I am now somewhat motivated.  I have a few things I have deemed worthy of the blog world, so I am back and hopefully for good!

Since the beginning of the year, I wanted to have a bulletin board dedicated solely to student work.  I wanted to showcase the work and then have a compilation of work by the end of the year. A coworker showed me a cool way to use folders and prong type things to hold work.

But for some reason I put it in my head that this project would take forEVER, so I kept putting it off.  Over the holidays, it quickly rose to the top of my list as I needed to fill the board that was the same thing for over a month (and not relevant things for 3 weeks!) And, it took me ONE period to complete it.  It was wonderful.

This picture is from the very first day! All but two kids found something right away to put on the board.  The other two found something the next day.

Each week my students are strongly encouraged to put things in their folder/on the board.  They can choose anything from tests, quizzes, worksheets, drawings, journal entries, whatever they wish.  Each student has their own folder, with their name visible.

At first they seemed to dread doing this, but now they get very excited when new things get put up on the board!  We use the words 'Star Student' a lot in our room, so it fit perfectly for the name of our board.  Plus I got the star border from my mother-in-law (who is FabUlous!) and it works wonderfully as well!

It is the perfect addition to our room and brings me much joy each time I reflect on it.  I now know not to put things off for too long, especially when they are so easy!