 Welcome back to another Apple's NTR's vlog. Today is Monday, August 1st and I've just walked through the door. I really want to give you guys a classroom tour. I think I might do that today and I can't see it because it's blurred, which I just learned if I do a cinematic setting on my phone it blurs everything. Amazing. Anyways, so I just walked through the door. I might do a little mini classroom tour because my classrooms in a really amazing state right now but I think I'm gonna wait until I have everything ready for the day before I do that. The first thing I wanted to come and peak at was we did this little experiment with marshmallows over the weekend and so I just wanted to see the results of that. The kids, I mean the kids didn't set it up. I set it up but there's three different ones. There's also one in here. This one is vinegar. This one is water. Disgusting. So anyway, we're gonna be looking at those results today. But yeah, so it is the beginning of the third week of school. Many, many people have still been asking me why we start back so early. I feel like I cover this in, you know, lots of videos and I'm sure I've covered it on Instagram. But I'm in a year-round school district so we start like second to last week of July and then we get out like before Labor Day, May 24th, 25th-ish. And we have two two-week breaks and one three-week break in the middle of the school year so I personally prefer that especially for Arizona because during the month of July and August it's so warm and the kids can't really play anyways so they might as well be at school. And the same for me. I personally like having a shorter summer because as you all know, if you're teachers, we don't get paid through the summer. So by the time summer is over for me, I'm like, you know, rolling in on fumes if you know what I mean. So actually this week is my first paycheck since May. Crazy. So anyways, a couple things on my to-do list for this morning. I need to go get some River Rocks. I'm gonna be doing a Generation Genius lesson these next couple of days. And the first part of this lesson actually involves the kids making observations using rounded rocks from a stream, river, or sand from a local beach. So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give each table group a little cup of sand because I do have some. And then a River Rock and we're gonna be doing what's called a Sea Think Wonder where the kids spend time making observations. They're thinking about how these types of rocks were formed. So I'm gonna be asking them, think about how this rock became so smooth. And then I'll have them do wonder, which is where they ask questions. That's gonna pretty much cover our whole class period because I'm still teaching the kids how to do the routine of a Sea Think Wonder. And part of that routine is going step by step, making observations, then speaking about them, sharing them with the teammates. Then thinking about how things have occurred. Stop and share. Then ask questions. Stop and share. And I actually want to put their questions up on the board today so that they can come back to these questions later because we are gonna be getting into the Earth's systems. So the spheres like geosphere, hydrosphere, and then we'll be getting into erosion and the shaping of the Earth. So this is kind of like my introduction into the shaping of the Earth. So what I need to do first things first right now is go get some rocks. I did send my student aid down there on Friday to grab some, but the ones that she grabbed, I mean this one's actually pretty good. It is broken, which is good. But there's a couple in here that have like paint on them and like writing and that's just not gonna work. Like this one has a name on it. So that's not gonna work because you already know the kids are gonna be like, it has a name on it. Okay, well, yes, but we're not trying to look at that. So I'm gonna go down and gather a few more rocks. And then I need to put some sand and some cups for the kids to be able to feel and look at. And then when I come back, I will get the room prepped for the day. By the way, it is 6 30 in the morning. I'm here super early because my husband actually starts his new shift today, which is day shift. So he's actually off Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and he works from 6 a.m. until 4 p.m. Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So we get to have him home every single night. It's been a long four, almost four years, I believe, of him working the swing shift. And so I've been kind of like riding the whole single parent wave for four days out of the week. And I'm really excited to have my partner back. So anyway, there's that. I'm gonna go get some rocks. All right, I am back and I found some more rocks. This one's really good. Look at that. Nice and round and smooth. Really good. But they're a little sandy. So I think what I'm gonna do is go rinse them off in the sink and then come back, make some sand, get this all set up, and then maybe I'll take you guys on a tour. I just mean like in a while. I don't mean like I've never had 30 kids. I remember when I taught at Prescott when I was with Jennifer. And I had 36 students in one room and I was pregnant. It's fine. We'll get through it. It's just you guys know, I mean, you teachers, you know, the class sizes can really, really affect your effectiveness. And if you don't think so, then I need whatever it is you're drinking because I need to get on that. All right. So I have everything pretty much set for the day. All I have left is to put up my slideshow. So I'm going to do that real quick. And then I'm going to take you guys on a little classroom tour. All right, my friends. So the time has come for me to give you a little mini classroom tour of my fourth grade science and social studies classroom. I want you to just keep in mind that this classroom has been lived in for the past week and a half. So things that I had put up before school and meet the teacher night may have changed or there may be like random things are out the room who where I have like added things and like schedules are up. And there's some personal things around that I will have to blur. So just keep that in mind. But we will just begin with the front door. Now I'm going to try not to talk my way through this entire tour. I'm probably not going to explain where everything is from. If you're wondering about something that you see on the walls, whether it's a font or whether it's a like a sign, it's probably from teachers pay teachers. And if it isn't something that's like school related, it probably came from Amazon. So anyway, we'll just get started. So this is the front door. I just have my safety curtain here. It's just a piece of fabric and I'm just holding it up with these magnets. So they just stay up there all the time. And then obviously when I'm not giving a classroom tour, I just kind of clip this up. And then I have these little magnets that I can put out on the front of the window in case. And then you can see my little welcome backboard out in the hallway. These are supposed to be labeled and I have every intention of doing so. But basically they're just like who's out lights. So this one's for girls, boys and then I don't know this one's for these are Mandy actually had these hung up before I was in here. So but I've planned on using them. This was a sweet, sweet gift from one of my students this year. She gave one to each one of us. And so obviously I have mine on the door. And then I also have a digital clock here. And that is for bathroom sign out purposes. As you could probably imagine, yes, there are kids who still cannot tell time. And so having a digital clock there is really helpful. It also is helpful because my clocks don't work because they have not replaced my batteries yet. So those do not work. And then I have my little 100 X of kindness whenever I notice somebody doing something kind, I'll have them come in and fill in heart. And when the whole thing is filled out, then I will do a prize for the fourth grade, I'll probably just do like utter pops or something. And then we're going to go this direction. So next we have our Student Center, which has some different things located on it. All of my supplies that the students are welcome to use is here. That includes like sanitizer, pencil sharpener paper tissue, you guys see all of it. These are just handouts that are being kept up here. So that there's volunteer packets, there's glee club signups, there's code of conducts like anything that the kids might need or anybody might need from out of the room. I just kind of keep there. And then obviously, you can see like our special schedule. And a couple of other things if you want to order books from me, please do I get points. And then I have my inbox here with Taylor Swift reminding them to put their name on it. The last thing I had the kids turn in were these adorable pictures of scientists. This is a lesson from Josie Bensko maniacs in the middle. Really cute. I do have to wrap this project up by taking pictures of the kids. And then I wanted to hang them up on this wall. This wall is the purpose of this wall changes. I feel like it really does. I would like to put those up on that wall and make it like a student work wall. Okay, moving on. So over here, we have my big supply closet. And obviously, I wasn't going to fit all of that in there with everything that's in there. So I did purchase some of these black metal. Sorry, I purchased some of these black metal bookshelves from Amazon. This one was a gift from Mandy, but I like to throw on wheels, because all of my lab supplies, stem supplies, whatever it is supplies that I would ever use rubber bands, toothpicks, rocks, marshmallows. And what's nice about this is that my student aid could come in. And as you guys saw earlier, you can just pull them out, get what you need and push them back in. So that is kind of the functionality I was going for. And then I have my cleaning cart, which used to be a lab cart, and it's probably going to go back to being a lab cart, which is where instead of putting all my red sorry about that, instead of putting all my red trays up front, I would usually keep them on this. And then as I go around, I can roll around the room and hand out the things that the kids need. So once I sort out all this cleaning stuff, I'll probably make this be my lab cart again, just because it's a lot easier. And then up here can be where I save all my paper flow, which is what it's usually used for. And then I have stem centers here. So like Legos, blocks, things that the kids would reach for like during indoor recess or just other various projects that we do. And then we have the rest of my supply closet. So across the top here are all my students science notebooks. I don't typically use like social studies notebooks, I think I use them like two or three times in a year. So what I plan on doing is collecting as many composition notebooks as I can, because I have the kids bring two of them. So I'll collect them and I'll store them in here for them. And then as we fill these up, if we need a second one, then they have a second one. And if there's like a special one, like these are kind of special, I'll just let the kids keep those like I'm not going to be stingy about that. But if they have just a little black ones, I'll just collect them and keep them just in case they need a refill. And then obviously, a lot of my other supplies is here. So I have like hot glue guns and like staplers and tape and like all kinds of things in here they're not labeled but I can tell what they are just by looking through them. And then like obviously folders, file folders, and some border. And then this is where I keep a lot of supplies to these two black ones are actually school supplies like pencils, crayons, glue markers, colored pencils that aren't stored in there. So like they're still in the boxes in here. And that's kind of my overflow. The rest of it though is like paint, paper plates. I mean, you can kind of see what's in there just by looking like this one snapkins and forks and spoons and cups. And then I have like plastic or not plastic paper bags down there. I use that for various things. And then this is all the food stuff. So like, at Halloween, we're going to do pumpkin launchers. So I have those already in there and like spaghetti for some stem stuff and, you know, kind of everything. These are my table bins that I planned on using for every day like project making, like cutting and gluing things like that. Everything that the kids would need is in here glue, scissors, pencil sharpeners, highlighters. And that way all I have to do is say, okay, go get your table bin, and then they can use what's in it, put it back and then replace it. And then I also have construction paper. And then I also did make three class notebooks. So I do have them sitting right here next to the absent bin. This is where any absent work will go if a kid's gone, I pass it out anyway. And then their teammate puts their name on it and puts it in the absent bin. So whenever they're gone, they know that their things will be here when they return. And then up here is just more storage. I really don't like the look of like clutter and mess. So I have to keep things in boxes and bins. So up here, there's various items like cords and Ziploc bags. And there's some like pre made like, in there, there's a bunch of like pre made task cards that have already been organized in bags by group. So I just keep them in there organized. And then I don't have to remake them every year. And then obviously in here is the Monica closet, which isn't actually that bad. I mean, considering, so I just keep any extra supplies that doesn't really have a home over there over here. So most of the time I can get what I need over there. But there are random times that I have to come shop over here and get a few things. But in here, I have just like some, you know, extra paper sanitizer. In here, I keep a lot of my like pre made signs. So things like this that I'm not using at the moment, I keep in these bins here. And I'm not going to go through every single one of those because that would take us years. And we don't have years. All right, I don't know where that just cut off my cameras being weird. So I don't know what got cut off and what didn't. So I'll try to fill in any gaps that I can. But this is my teaching space. I don't really stand here a whole lot. Unless I'm using the document camera, or I'm at my computer. But when I'm actually teaching, I'm walking around the room. I don't usually sit down. So any of my students that you've that you'll ever meet will tell you Miss Valdez never sits down. Except during block three at like the end of a long day, I might sit on my stool, but not for very long. So over here, I do have our engineering and design practices. And these aren't typically used for like making learning targets. But I like to pull them from here a lot. So like the other day, when I when we set up this marshmallow thing, I said, you guys are actually planning and carrying out an investigation. You have a question that you want to investigate. And so I refer to these a lot because I want the kids to know what they are and be aware that they need to know how to how to use them and and when they're using them so they can recognize that. And then my teaching cart. So I just have like, these are old copies of notebooks, just in case I want to pull something from here and see what I've used in the past and use it again. And then this I like to use for like, if I want to write on a piece of paper and then okay, if my camera poops out on me one more time, I'm going to film this later. Okay, so the cart, I don't know where it cut off. I'm not sure. But I have my skin color crayons here. Whenever we do a project that requires them, I'll put them up here and I'll say, come grab whatever color you want, put it back. And then I just keep it up here so that I always have it. You can obviously see what's in my cart. I keep a lot of sticky notes and a lot of flashcards up here because I do a lot of things with them, whether it's a quick little exit ticket or using it to put on the whiteboard. And then over here is my amazing flexi spot rising desk. I did have a coupon code running on this for a while, but I believe it is closed by now. And then I keep just random stuff in here. So like this is the remote for those lights. Other sticky notes, highlighters, just random things that I might pull to grab. Like these are partner cards. They're little emojis. So you can just be like, oh, you want to find a partner? Let's find them that way. It's just kind of mixed things up. And then obviously the things are on my desk. This is a document camera. I absolutely hate it. Basically, I can flip my Chrome book inside out. And then the camera that's on the outside points down through here. But this part is not efficient. I have to use like a clip board to put my stuff on to write because it's just a pain in the rear. And then I'm just gonna show you guys quickly my table groups. So I do have six groups of five right now. If I get any more students, we might have to change the layout of the room. I've actually thought about moving them so that they are facing this way and set it this way. But for now, we're going to keep it like this just until everyone gets really settled in. And I might even push them together so that I have more walking space so that they're just two huge long rows. But I do prefer stools rather than chairs. It really does help the kids to stay awake. They are a little bit more uncomfortable than a chair. But I feel like with stools, it makes it so much easier to stand up, which they do a lot of. So I like the stools better. And as you can see, my table groups are labeled by continents. I do teach social studies as well. And part of my curriculum involves continents and oceans. And I just feel like the kids should know them, you know, like in third grade, they should be learning those. And by fourth grade, they should know them. So I do have them labeled by continents. And I refer to them as continents, not table one. It's North America. OK, Europe. So everything is labeled by continent. All right, going to scooch over here. I do have my big. I think this is 70 inches. I'm not sure. I don't really care. I wish I had like a smart interactive board. That would be great, but it is what it is. I do love that it's up high, though, so I can stand here and kids can see it. And then I have this table, which is a great storage place. So I keep a lot of stuff under here. And the tablecloth just came from Amazon. I just looked up like Expo booth tablecloth and it's only three sided. I guess four sided because of the top. But anyway, you guys get it. It's nice because it hides a lot of stuff and it's visually appealing matches the aesthetic. And then up here is where I generally will keep like paper flow. So the copies that I've made, if I do have copies for the day, so like this one will be using tomorrow in a center rotation that we're going to be doing. So I have those preprinted and ready to go. And I generally will keep all the paper up here. But for right now because my lab cart is busy, I do have lab supplies up here. Well, my whiteboard is my focus wall. I do keep my learning target and standard up there. And then over here in this corner, I do plan on having key words or terms. And I don't define them. I just write them down as we start hearing them. And then the kids will refer to them over and over again. And by then, they kind of know what they mean. Because, you know, with our new science standards in Arizona, they really don't want us front loading vocabulary. They want the kids discovering the meaning of words. And so I just put the key terms there so that they can use them when speaking or listening to each other. And then in the middle, I just have a space kind of reserved for like if I need a draw or write anything random. And then our notice and wonder wall is right here. And that is where we put sticky notes with all of their observations and questions. And then on this side of the wall, I have the date, which obviously needs to be changed. And then I will put like things that they need here, like supplies. But I feel like it's going to be one of those things that like I don't keep up with and it just ends up being like a whatever part of the wall. And then over here, we have just more kind of like storage and decor. This is like a seat for kids to read at. And then all of my like a lot of my stuff is stored in here. You guys can probably see the labels. So I have like all my smells, my technology stuff, like there's a lot of stuff in there. These markers are for anchor charts, if I were to make one or draw a picture on it. That's what those are for. And then this little nook of the library is kind of just like my stuff that I'm storing. So I have like dictionaries there. I have some old lit studies and some read aloud books that I love reading, but I don't want the kids putting their hands on. Um, these science source books were my textbook in college, hands down best purchase I ever made. They're so great for not only the kids to use, but for me to use, if I'm not positive on a concept that I have to teach, I will go to these science source books and look and see and it has amazing information. It's basically a science dictionary orthosaurus. It's amazing. So anyway, love that. And then obviously my plants are there. And then coming this direction, we have Antarctica, which is just a chill out spot. Don't know why this is here, but anyway, this is where kids can go to chill if they need a break from the crowd or if I need them to take a break from the crowd. So this is Antarctica. And then coming this way is really just kind of like the rest of stuff like my first aid stuff is in here and then extra tissues, my class library. Then over here is just an extension of the library. These are all my picture books. I did decide not to use this as a bench this year and instead use it as a booktower, which I'm liking. It's working out. And then over here is my dojo prize area. I do have my treasure box down there. And then my wheel, which I have a few empty spaces I need to fill in. And my candy jar needs to be refilled as well. And then these are more storage for me. So these are like resource books and binders that are full of resources and stuff. Then my rat cages here. It's very big. The girls are not actually in there. I left them at home today just because they do tend to become a distraction. And, you know, I want these kiddos to understand that I'm more important than the rats and what they're learning is more important than the rats. So when the rats become more important than anything else, then they have to go. So they are home today. We'll see how things go. And then over here we have my mirror, which lots of selfies are taken in. And then I did bring my guitar to school this year. I thought it would be fun to kind of like have to strum about, you know, at the beginning of class or the end of class when things get a little bit hectic or everybody's escalated, they need a little bit of calming. And that's been really nice. I've been learning a lot of new songs and it's been fun. And then this is my teacher space, which is also my small group space. So this table here, starting this week, I think, maybe we'll be doing some small group work. And small group for science really is just catching kids up who are absent, catching kids up on things that they may not totally be understanding. So some concept reteaching vocabulary practice. And I can also help my ELA teacher by progress monitoring. And I can also pull math groups from my math teacher. I'm kind of like the person that can help out if needed. So if someone's like, oh my gosh, I really need you to work on multiplication of, you know, two digit by two digit numbers. I'm like, sure, give me a group, I'll help them out. I might have taught all of fourth grade standards in the past. So I do, I am qualified to help with ELA and math. And then as you guys can see, I just, my kind of area isn't exactly as organized as I'd hoped, but I'm working on it because when I'm not teaching, I am so busy trying to do other things and organizing that back shelf is just not my priority. So but then this is where I keep my like computer. And I love having this big monitor for grading when I'm planning when I'm, you know, pulling up a kid's assignment here and then I can just plop the grade in on that screen is really nice. And then as we come this way, you can see I've got a little workbench work table here. My student aid will work here and prep things if I need them to. And yeah. And then obviously the Chromebook cart is here. And it has student names on it. So I am blurring it out. But what I use it for is when the kids come in, before they grab their Chromebook, if they're going to have school lunch, they'll take their card, they'll move it to the other side. My camera's killing me. Anyway, if they want salad, they move it down to the bottom. And then my student assistance will come through and pull the lunch cards that match the name on the cart or on the card. And then the very last thing is our fourth grade schedule and our lineup reminder. So so yeah, that is everything in my fourth grade science and social studies classroom. I love this room. It just gives me all the feels. All right, you guys, so I think my camera is like officially over filming. So I'm going to go ahead and end this vlog here. I hope you guys enjoyed the tour. If you have any really, really burning questions about anything in the room, feel free to ask them down in the comments below and I will see you all in the next video. Bye. I drive as memories fly by driving by the fields I used to run through.