Actually, I don't have a desk in my non-virtual classroom.  I make do with a large bookcase and a closet.  (Isn't it better to try to stash most of my stuff out of sight, anyway? Nobody needs to see my mountain of assessments that need grading.)  

That said, welcome to my virtual teacher space!  Over the past several years, I have found tons of amazing teaching materials and resources online on other teachers websites, and I can't tell you how much I've appreciated it.  It's really helpful and inspiring to see what other teachers are doing, and since this is a collaborative profession, why not share around the work load?  So much the better if the internet can help us accomplish this!  I can't promise that I'll constantly be adding materials, but as I create things that I think would be useful to a larger audience than just my classroom, I'll try to post them here.  Of course, some materials will be listed within other sections of the website when appropriate.  For example, Weekly Word Study packets are listed under the Word Study section of the 2009-2010 archive.  I hope this section is helpful for my colleagues, both here at Chelsea Prep, and out in the wider world.  Oh, and if you have any comments, questions, suggestions, or just want to say hi, please send me a message through my contact link.

Also ... I'm going to be blogging on Scholastic's Classroom Solutions website for the 2011-2012 school year.  I'll be sharing loads of ideas from my classroom, as well as discussing some of the challenges that I face during the school year.  Some resources will only be posted on their website, and other resources will only live here. (It's kind of impossible to keep up with duplicate posting of everything.)  So stop by Scholastic's blog and see what I'm up to ... and if you have any questions or feedback, feel free to post it there too.
(http://blogs.scholastic.com/classroom_solutions/alycia_zimmerman/)

Click here to check out how I created centers revolving around the reading skill of main idea, and to download several worksheets I created for my class.

Click here to see bits of the management system I use in my classroom and to download some of the accompanying forms.  

I use these paragraphs to hep my students prepare for the editing portion of the NYS English Language Arts exam. My students complete an edit every day as a "do now" routine, and then we go over it.  Click here download my editing paragraphs to use with your students.

Click here to visit the section of this website with archived web assignments.  These include research projects, center activities, and other guided internet experiences that I've used with my students.

Gone but not forgotten ... visit the project archives from the past two years to see examples of student work from many of the projects that we've done in class.  This is a great way to get a sense of what we do in our class.  I hope some of these projects might give you ideas for activities for your class.  If you want lesson plans, background info, or resources for any of the projects in the archives, just shoot me an email.