Open House 2014

Every year I both look forward to and dread open house.  I am just being honest, it is a lot of hard work, but it is fun work!  The kids enjoy showing off some of their hard work to their families, and watching them explain what everything is, is a lot of fun to see.  I don't have a lot of wall space in my classroom to display work, so we improvise using the whiteboard, etc...  This year we had some "Postcards" of the regions of CA that we made, our personal narratives, a huge map of CA that the kids worked really hard on, and a foldable that labeled the different parts of Kelp - we studied it while reading "Island of the Blue Dolphins."  These are the things we were able to display on our walls.  As for our desks, my students had their Island work, a CA folder that has all sorts of information, and activities we did to learn about our state, writing from throughout the year, and some art that we had done.

Overall this years turn out was pretty great!  I was happy to talk to all of my students and brag about them to their parents - always nice to be able to do, and it makes them feel so good.  The day after our schools open house, we have a half day of school, which is nice, but even better, we get a chance to look at other classrooms.  Some of the teachers got together and put a map out and if you want to participate just open up both of your classroom doors and snake through them!  Talk about fun!  As a teacher, we don't get to go around and check out what our coworkers have done, and how hard their students have worked, so this gives us, as well as our students a chance to do that.  It's neat for the students moving up a grade to see what is coming, and to look back and remember some of the things they did prior years.

Here are some pictures of some of the things we did in our class.

Parts of Kelp

Some of the students Personal Narratives - underneath the final draft is the rough draft, and graphic organizers that we used to write our narratives.

The CA maps that my students did.  They had MANY things listed to label, and we used our maps in our books to help us do that.  They REALLY enjoyed working on these, and put forth their best efforts!

Each student wrote down their favorite book that they have read this year!  I love this, because they see it multiple times a day, and they read what others are reading.  

And there you have it, another fun year in the books for Open House!  What are some things that you do in your classrooms?  I am ALWAYS looking for fresh ideas, and new things to do with 4th grade.