Classroom Tour

Tomorrow is the first day of school and after a week and a half of redoing my room, I am ready to share what it looks like.

First a quick story on my room. My first year of teaching I had a huge red wall and it drove me crazy by the end of the year. After that I ripped it all down and wallpapered my room in black. It stayed like that for 4 years. This summer I decided to redo one wall with purple fabric after talking to my teaching buddy/BFF. Once that wall was done everything else just seemed out of place. That's when I slowly created a purple theme. I didn't think anything was going to match, but somehow it all came together.

 View from the door

 My desk is to the right as soon as you walk into the classroom

 Right side of the classroom

 Front of the classroom

 Where I display student work

 Back of the classroom

 Left side of the classroom

 Bathroom

 Word Wall

 Anchor Chart Wall

 Writing Wall

Library

I love my classroom this year and I can't wait to spend time in there with my students. It took a lot of work, time, dedication, and sore legs and feet, but it was definitely worth it!!!

Weekly Recap {Jan 22- Jan 25}

I hope everyone had a nice short week. I definitely had a very short week. Tuesday was the 100th day. As you guys already know I was at jury duty so I left a few things for my students to work on while I was gone. The most exciting thing was their 100 years old writing. We brainstormed on the Friday before. Then they completed the writing on Tuesday while I was gone. When I returned on Wednesday, they made the art project.

I didn't make my students a template to follow since I didn't have too much time to prep for this activity. I basically just modeled it for them, gave them construction paper, and just let them go.

This one was my favorite. She even drew glasses with a little chain. She came up with the idea all on her own. Who would have though!?

I also got around to putting up our snow globe writing. I bought all of the materials for adding the fake snow and plastic plates, but due to time I left that part out. I still think they came out really cute.

We finally wrapped up our study on penguins. My students were extremely sad to see this unit end. It is a favorite of my students every year. 

We even used Deanna Jump's idea of trying to walk like a penguin with an egg on the top of your feet. The kids had a lot of fun with that one. Especially when the egg fell and they had to get it back on top of their feet without using their hands.

Some more happy mail came for our classroom from Donors Choose. We got some new books for read alouds. My students are looking forward to some future author studies.

Last, but not least, I would like to share with your our amazing new carpet. Again, from Donors Choose. I have been wanting a classroom carpet ever since I started teaching 5 years ago. Now I finally have one and I love it. Eventually I would like my whole classroom to follow this color scheme. One step at a time.

I am linking up over at...

Before Pictures

Many people that walk into my classroom think that it is such a clean and organized room. Clean... yes. Organized... NO WAY!!

Here is what everyone sees my classroom as...

I love my room and I spent a lot of time rearranging it to make it fit my needs as well as my students' needs. It is a very functional classroom, aside from the organizational piece that is missing. Today I am going to share with you my "secrets". Are you ready for them? I must say that they aren't pretty. Be warned, you are about to see my BEFORE photos. 

 This area looks fairly organized, except for the fact that I don't use ANY of it. I ocassionally lift up the fabric to get the students' reading books and a binder here and there, but other than that, these shelves are taking up prime real estate. 

 One of my few cabinets that lock is filled with supplies that don't need to be locked up.

 Math centers that have never been used because I still have no clue how I want to organize them. Without organization I'm afraid they will turn into a complete mess so instead they just sit in the corner.

 Movies that I hardly ever watch with my class (maybe three a year) as well as old journals and folders.

 Two drawers that are my "junk" drawers. I know houses have junk drawers, but a classroom... really!?

 My math cabinets. Surprisingly, this is pretty nice compared to what it used to be.

 Under the sink, don't get me started. :-/

 My main source of supplies, all crammed into four small drawers.

 Two cabinets that house extra books or materials that aren't used.

 A bookshelf that I bought to solve the issue of limited space. I love how everything is stored away, but I hate the fact that I would like these things locked up since Lakeshore stuff is so pricey!!

 My desk. I try to have a little organization system in place. I think I outgrew it already.

 Yet again, another locking cabinet that houses materials that don't need to be locked up.

 My teaching easel on a good day. By Friday it's packed and today is only Monday.

I hope I didn't scare you with all of my disorganization. I know it isn't too bad, but to me I find myself wasting more time trying to find things then actually teaching. If I had an organizational system in place, it would make my life so much easier. Not to mentioned I would never loose anything again... maybe.

I'm linking up over at Clutter Free Classroom. You can follow my process of organizing my classroom as well as play along with us. Check back later in the week when I do challenge #2, planning.

Tables vs. Desks

Now on to what I made this weekend. I saw this pin and I thought it was a good idea.

Then my coworker actually made on in her classroom. It looked so cute. I've always had a compliment chain, but it always took too long to reach the floor and it just wasn't that cute. I knew I wanted sometime cute, but I didn't want to use the jar. At first I was going to make Brownie Points and when students earn all of their "brownies" I would make them brownies. Very cute idea, but I went ahead and made a gumball machine instead. That way the students will be able to vote on their reward, that is half the fun and surprise!!

The gumball machine starts blank and whenever the class receives a compliment for making smart choices, or for having a nice line, they will get a gumball added to their machine. When the whole machine is filled up, they will be able to vote on a reward (extra recess, movie, free time, etc.)

I'm linking up over at 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made it!!

Classroom Tour (in pictures)

Tomorrow is the first day back to school. I spent last week in meetings and getting my classroom all set up. I even went in on Friday when we had the day off to lesson plan. I am glad that I did though because I am so ready. I always get nervous/excited to start a new school year. This will be my 5th year and I've never been so ready. In my last post, I had a video of my classroom tour and I promised pictures. So here they are!

 

This is the wall right next to the door. The door is on the left (out of frame). I love having this wall set up with class lists, bus routes, supply lists, and lunch forms. It makes it easy to catch every parent/student walking in and just make sure that all of the information I have is correct. After the first week I will turn this into a bulletin board featuring the students and eventually it will be our data wall. The chart underneath the bathroom sign is my behavior management clip chart. You can see a separate post on that here. Then of course we have the bathroom. I have a love/hate relationship with having a bathroom in my class. Luckily my BFF (and teacher next door) came up with a genius solution. More about that in another post.

Now we're just going to go around my room in a circle. This is the area where things are just "hanging out". This is the door to the teacher next door, a.k.a. BFF. It is also where I store one of my easels. If you notice the posters hanging around my room with characters from books, I made those!!

Here is my sink area and storage. This is the only storage in my entire room. I am so jealous of the other teachers in our school because they have a wall of storage, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. I am a person that needs everything hidden or else it just looks cluttered, so for me, it would be a good thing. Also, if you notice the little pants. Those are my Smartie Pants. You can find more information on those here.

Here is my reading area. This is actually a new spot in my room. Before it was just an empty corner that was never used and now it will be where all of my kids meet to listen to read alouds. I eventually want to make those crate seats to have in this area, but that will have to be another project sometime this year. You can also see my reading fluency wall, again another post will be made specifically for that.

Here are my standards. I love my new standards wall. It looks so clean and organized. I don't have to write anything on my board anymore, I just have to slip them in and out of pocket protectors. How easy is that!!! I also used electrical tape to separate the board and I love that stuff.

This is the view from where I teach. I do a lot of teaching on the floor, but when we have to use the document camera and projector, this is where we go. It's taken many years to figure out this arrangement. I am planning on doing a blog post on how to set up your classroom with tables. I have tons of pictures and advice on this subject so expect that soon. 

This is my main meeting area. I loved how the carpet looked on the tile and even though I have carpet on this side of my room (Don't ask, my room is set up so strangely.) I still liked that it outlined where the kids should be. You can see my math wall (post later) and my calendar wall. I'm going to be buying Mountain Math so that wall will transform within the next month or so. Then I have more storage, but it is so awkwardly shaped that I can't use it for much. I would have loved a corner instead. This corner is always a work in progress because it always looks so cluttered.

This is my intervention table. Just like my classroom tables, this has been all over my room. I am hoping that this placement works because it blocks off the cubbies during the school day and it still gives me a view of the whole classroom. The shelves about my cubbies and those shelves full of supplies are so distracting. I have fabric to cover them up as well as curtains for the windows, but the fire marshall is coming so you know how that goes...

This is my teacher area. Not too exciting or pretty. You can't even see any of it unless you are staring from the cubbies. I like it that way. I hate walking into a teachers classroom and see an island just for them that takes up half of the room. I wish I could get rid of the teacher's desk, but we aren't supposed to have any of our furniture moved out of the rooms.

Here is the final part of my room, my library. Most of those books are from the Goodwill. The bookshelves are made by my dad. I told him he needed to go into business designing furniture for teachers. 

That does it for my classroom tour. If you have any questions about what you see or want some detailed information, leave a comment and I'll be happy to answer them. Also, leave a comment with a link to your classroom pictures. I love seeing how other people set up their rooms.