Start Your Engines..............

Like so many, my family absolutely LOVED this summer's blockbuster movie hit Cars, which inspired me to begin thinking of ways to welcome the kids to my classroom with a racecar theme. I am so excited to welcome my new students to 3rd grade with a classroom theme of "Third Graders—Start Your Engines."

Our classroom rules are posted in big letters at the front and follow the acronym "RACE":
R-Respect—yourself and others.
A-Attitude—always have a positive one.
C-Cooperate—and always do your best.
E-Excellence—it's the key to success!
We learn the sign language signs for these words, and we do them together each morning at calendar time.

Our reading corner is now called "the Pit" and features a four-foot blow-up racecar (that I won on eBay for cheap!) suspended from the ceiling. My classroom helpers are now called the "Pit Crew" and our classroom water fountain has been renamed the "Fill-R-Up Station." The hand-in bins have been appropriately renamed "the Finish Line"—all of these "signs" were made with Microsoft WordArt, using the checkered flag page-border art style with 31 point width.

One of our bulletin boards has a brightly colored U.S. map and is titled "Race Across the States." Students will attempt to receive postcards from every state. As they do, we will learn the capital of each new state and will remove that state's "license plate" from the Race Across the States wall.

As we look forward to our 100th day of school, a little mouse-driven racecar will progress from one number to the next along the number line atop the white board, to help us keep track of the countdown to the 100th day of school.

What formerly was my Student of the Week bulletin board has been transformed into "Victory Lane," complete with an oversized, graphic Winner's Cup with the student's name added to the faceplate. On this bulletin board, the student of the week will get to share pictures of his or her family along with his or her "Driver of the Week" form, where the student lists all favorite pastimes and other special personal details.

Everything was made from scratch except for a plastic Cars tablecloth from Wal-Mart for my bulletin board background, a plastic birthday party "Start Your Engines" flag banner, and black-and-white checkered fabric for touches of the "checkered flag" effect throughout.

The thing that was the most fun for me was when I converted the front of my desk into a '57 Chevy! I blew up a picture of a grill of a '57 Chevy and turned it into an 18" x 24" lifelike grill, then did the same with photographs of headlights and glued them to foam board for that 3-D effect and stuck them on each corner of the front end of my desk. I had so much fun that I made a hood ornament out of foam board and ticky-tacked it to the center of my desktop!

For icebreakers, my students will "paint" their own racecar on tag board. All students will have their pictures taken, and we'll put their pictures on the heads of their racecar drivers. When everyone is finished designing his or her own racecar, we will do one "lap around the track" (around the classroom) to show off our fancy paint jobs.

Next, my 3rd-grade "drivers" will be directed to start their engines and line up for "time trials." The directions for this activity will be: "This time trial is to see how long it takes you to line yourselves up according to your birthdays, beginning with January 1st and ending with December 31st, only you have to decide how you're going to get this done."

"Drivers on your marks... get set... GO!" (And I will wave the green flag!)

Then I will keep time on the stopwatch and observe who emerged in the group as a leader, the most hesitant to work in a group, the bossiest, the most sensitive, the most easily discouraged, etc. I only "help" from time to time if they all get stuck or seem to be spinning out and going nowhere.

We will repeat this same activity midyear and also at the end of the year, and the students will see just how much better they have become at working as a team.

I guess you could say I'm revved up and ready to go back to school!

I hope this inspires others to get their classrooms all "spiffed up" for an exciting new school year!