AGGGHHHHHHH!!!!! I am so excited for this year!!! And I'm so happy that I get to share my brand new classroom with you!!
I don't know a single classroom teacher who hasn't spent his or her summer "off" contemplating and planning for the next year. We start early looking for that perfect book box, the cutest binder, the best deals on TpT, reading teacher blogs, following education companies/councils/associations on Twitter, attending summer PD, trolling Pinterest for ideas, etc. And most of the time our search pays off and our constant vigilance keeps up up to date and in sync with educational information.
I don't know a single classroom teacher who hasn't spent his or her summer "off" contemplating and planning for the next year. We start early looking for that perfect book box, the cutest binder, the best deals on TpT, reading teacher blogs, following education companies/councils/associations on Twitter, attending summer PD, trolling Pinterest for ideas, etc. And most of the time our search pays off and our constant vigilance keeps up up to date and in sync with educational information.
ANYWAY.......I would just like to say kudos and hats off to all you classroom teachers out there that never stop planning and preparing to give their kids the best and most awesome school year imaginable, summer after summer, year after year!!
And finally, my room is ready for our school year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Which starts in 12 days.
I'm so excited to show off my new and improved classroom this year. I chose to do a rainbow color theme with Wizard of Oz. It came out adorably precious, if I do say so myself.
Which starts in 12 days.
I'm so excited to show off my new and improved classroom this year. I chose to do a rainbow color theme with Wizard of Oz. It came out adorably precious, if I do say so myself.
Please pardon the pictures because all I have is an iPhone 5 and a Polaroid Compact Instant camera that makes 1.8" x 2.4" pictures. So enjoy :)
Here is a picture of the room from the door. You can see my wonderful Somewhere over the Rainbow sign
Also, please pardon my bags of stuff and Carly. She will pop up in pictures occasionally.
Oh, look. Shoes.
Oh, look. Shoes.
These are my Word Work drawers. I put the items the children will need to use during Daily 5 in the drawers. They can pull the drawer out and bring it to where they are working. The table next to it and the black basket are also part of the Word Work center. I covered the top of the table with Chalkboard Contact Paper. Here is a before shot:
And after:
Look how cute!! It was so easy, too. Just peel off the contact paper a little at a time and smooth out as you go. I used a store rewards cards to help me smooth. The round edges I had to cut in strips and wrap around the bottom edge of the table.
And it works really well with the chalk. I put the white and colored chalk in little silver pail I found at Target. My chairs were also in need of an overhaul, as you can see from that picture above, so I covered the seats with yellow Contact Paper.
A little better, yes??
Here is my supplies center. Everything we need such as glue or scissors or pencils or art supplies, etc. is located here in the bins. Three of my labels messed up in the laminator so I have to reprint them. Construction paper is organized by color in the slots. my VCR/DVD player and Ladibug are on top ready for use. My crayons are sorted in the boxes on top of my fridge.
Here is a close up of my fridge. I also covered the front with yellow Contact Paper and then glued on my silhouettes of the Wicked Witch and her flying monkey! It didn't completely cover up the scratches on my fridge, but I might add some rainbow clouds or something at the top there. Maybe a rainbow yellow brick road. Whatcha think??
Here is a closeup of the crayon boxes:
You can download your own copy of the Crayon labels here for FREE!
Here is my small teacher area above my file cabinet.
I'm working on the wires there, still haven't completely hooked everything up but I have some colored zip ties to help make things cuter and tidier. And you can see my Vicknair Violet 2 lb. crayon from my trip.
Why yes, we were watching THOR 2: The Dark World.
Above my windows are the silhouettes of Dorothy, the Cowardly Lion, the Tin Man, and the Scarecrow.
I got this idea from Maria over at KinderCraze. SHE IS AMAZING. I got so many of my ideas and items for my classroom this year directly from her site and her TpT store. Go check out her site. She drew silhouettes of children playing and put them above her wall of windows. And my classroom was inspired and helped along by School Girl Style's Rainbow Chalkboard theme. GREAT site there, too.
I love how they came out!! I think the kids are really gonna love them, too.
In the back corner of my room is my Library. I try to make it an inviting place so that kids will feel comfortable and excited about reading.
You can check out my blog post on how I set up my classroom library here.
I found my baskets at Dollar Tree and with some help from my AWESOME family members I was able to procure enough baskets. I used green for fiction, blue for nonfiction, red for chapter books, and pink for series. Overall I LOVE how the library turned out.
Some flowers to brighten up the spot.
A couch makeover and some fun pillows from Ikea for kids to lounge on. The blue seats are from a wonderful little store called Five Below that I found in Pennsylvania. And no, we don't have them here in Louisiana. The website told me to move.
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This store was like Heaven for teachers. Everything was $5 or below. And they literally had EVERYTHING. I could have bought that store out. Alas, I was in PA and only allowed two carry ons :(
Though it's on my "When I Become a Millionaire" list to open one down here.
Along the back wall is my word wall and computers.
There's Carly again, glued to the computer!
I found some adorable chevron fabric at JoAnn's and I made some table covers for my computers. I am going to get some Command hooks and hang the headphones on the side of the monitor. I think that will work best for my students and right now, they are just kind of haphazardly on top of or around the screens. We will see how the hooks work; probably terrifically because that's how 3M rolls.
On my word wall, I hot glued ribbon under the letters of the alphabet. I use paper clips to attach the words so they can easily be removed without ruining my cloud paper.
My book box and mailbox shelf finishes off the back wall.
These boxes were originally multicolored. I found them over the past five years every summer at Dollar General. Great boxes and they have really held their own with first graders. I spray painted them with Krylon Gloss Plastic spray paint.
Here's a before picture.
My hands were pretty much pitch black when I finished. I highly recommend wearing gloves. Or a Hazmat suit.
Looks fun right?
But they came out great and dried pretty fast.
I attached numbers to the front so the children will know which box is theirs.
In the back left corner, is my listening center.
I'm saving that little corner for my iPad Charging Station. I'm working on it right now and I will have more on that later :) I wrote a grant in May for a set of iPad Minis and I won! We will be ordering them in August and using them all year. The iPads will be used mostly during reading and Daily 5.
Hung up the headphones on Command hooks (thank you 3M!), put a cute little letter holder for listening response sheets, and the listening books in baskets.
We put 4 bar stools in front and added a little lamp for some coziness. All ready!
Above the Listening Center is where we store our units throughout the year. I have also hung my Model and Master Educator pennants from AR. We are getting AR this year so I am ready to get my classroom AR certified!
Along the wall is a row of cabinets. Totally and completely filled to the brim. We've got Teacher's manuals, extra copies, Journey's resources, Math in Focus resources, teaching resource books. math, science, etc. etc. Anything you can think off is located behind the cabinets. And no you can't look. It's, um, under repair. Yeah.
And look at the whole cast of characters!! They are so stinkin' cute!!!!
Next to listening is the Writing Center. I've got areas for reference, different paper, ideas, writing portfolios, and portable word walls. The little pails will hold red and blue pens and highlighters for editing and revising. I put the different paper in different labeled folders so the children can easily choose and keep it organized. I'll write a blog post later on how I incorporate grammar into my writing lessons and how I organize writing lessons.
Here are some great magazine holders I found at Big Lots. BEST FIND EVER. They are perfect for things that we will need to keep handy all year long.
The colors really brighten up the shelf and help to keep the theme clean.
Rounding out my counter top are our daily boxes. This was a life saver last year. During planning we would put any masters or activity pages, etc. in the corresponding folder so we would have it at the ready when we prepped for the next week. The boxes are big enough to contain any supplies needed for activities.
My CAFE board is on the cabinets above the counter. That's squares of chalkboard Contact Paper under the letters.
This is the Wizard of the Week board. Students bring pictures, special posters, items, etc. that they want to share and we hang it or tape it to the board here. It's right by the door so everyone can see it.
I laminated the black bulletin board paper so when we tape something to the board it won't ruin the paper.
I'm sure you've noticed my number line, also from KinderCraze. Ah-maz-ing.
The front of the room is the major focal point.
This is where we have morning meeting, mini lessons, conferring, and read alouds on our big rug. In the corner behind the door is our Morning Math board.
Morning math is a wonderful time and probably my favorite time of the day. Our mentor at ULS, Donna Lamonte, has been teaching for over 30 years and in fact recently won the Presidential Award for Excellence in Math and Science Teaching.
She is just an astounding educator and to watch her give a morning math lesson is a treat. We've modeled our teaching around hers and I'll be blogging about my morning math routines this fall. (Make sure you join the email list to stay on top of updates.) But for now, here is a quick tour of the board: We use tens frames for subitizing, a place value chart where we talk about numbers and break them into groups of ten (Hello Common Core!), the red pocket chart is for using tens and ones blocks to model the number of the day, and a chart for tally marks. On the next side is our calendar where we talk about days in the month and how many days until the next month. You see the Emerald City? That's patiently awaiting strips of velcro to be used as our money counter. Also there's a huge white space leftover and some magnetic tens and ones. This is where we compose and decompose numbers everyday. Again, reaching those standards.
Love my little "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" poster. Pinterest find and totally awesome-sauce.
And a lovely silhouette of Glinda covers the front of my morning math shelf. This shelf is on wheels so I can twirl it around and keep all my morning math items. This is where we keep the numbers for number of the day game, money, some markers, and the extra calendar pieces. I also keep some physical tens and ones blocks and unifex cubes for students who may need some more help decomposing numbers.
On top is the pencil sharpener and sharp and dull pails. Also, Mr. Mistoffelees who is our class mascot will be hanging out here. (he's the penguin in case you were wondering...)
My classroom rules are from KinderCraze. That's also chalkboard Contact paper that I wrote on using just plain white chalk.
However, I did not use wooden frames like she did. Number 1, I'm apparently not lucky enough to find wooden frames for cheap. Or at all, really. Number 2, I couldn't figure out how I was going to hang them and make them stay, so I just decided to use poster board. Yes, that's painted poster board. And they came out beautiful. Just use some more 3M Command strips and you're good to go.
Moving on along is my teacher shelf. I made it so purty by using more Contact paper, of course!!
There's my lovely binders!! Everything we will need is located right there. And of course the CAFE book has it's place of honor. At the ready!
The paint cans contain extra supplies like staples, paper clips, white out, since we don't have teacher desks in the room.
The job board and the color signs (also from KinderCraze!! Love her!).
The pockets will hold tongue depressors with the kids "Munchkin" pic so they will know which job is theirs for the week.
Under the easel has four big bins and is the perfect spot to keep my Journeys vocabulary cards, retelling cards, word/picture cards, etc. along with white boards for the students and other props for morning meeting and mini lessons. In the middle of the easel is where I store the Big Books.
See my books all ready for the first day of school? So excited!!
On the left side of the easel are the baskets for our play dough and journals. Yeah, weird mix right? But play dough helps to get the creative juices flowing! They love to make something and then describe it in their journals.
On the other side of the easel hangs our pocket chart and I put our pointers in this lovely bucket.
And some numbers for quick reference.
And our welcome banner hanging in the corner! It's from School Girl style.
I have 4 student tables. We keep pencils in the pail, and extra glue and scissors in the basket. Each student will have a supply box to keep their own personal supplies in. The name plates were created by me. They are included in the above download for table signs and everything else. Here is a close up:
The last student table has my associate's things on it and she is in the process of organizing so I didn't snap a pic.
Outside around my door I decorated using my tissue paper flowers.
Adds a little something cute, huh?
My partner teacher and I made this sign to welcome our kiddos to the first grade rooms.
I had so much fun decorating my classroom this year. I still have some finishing touches to add, such as the directions for the Listening Center and the beginning words for the word wall, among other things, but overall it is student and parent READY. I can't wait for the kids to see the room this year. I hope you enjoyed my classroom tour! Please leave some comments for feedback!
Thanks for stopping by!
Jessica
