It's Finally Ready!!!! - Classroom Pictures

I was so glad to see Swimming Into Second's linky party to Show Off Your Space because as of yesterday at 5:15 pm - my classroom is finished and ready for kiddos on Monday.  Make sure you link up with her - I love getting ideas from everyone!
And in advance, sorry for all of the pictures...I got a little excited about finish and a little carried away with picture taking.

 
Classroom Library and Math Manipulatives Area
 

Small Group Table - still a work in progress
 

Board for Literacy Vocab and Bucketfilling beneath
 

Clip Chart and Bathroom Pass and Sign-out Area
 

Supplies for kiddos and the All Star Work Wall
 

Desks are all grouped into 4. So far 24 students so it works out perfectly!  The folders on the desks will eventually be their privacy folders for test-taking.  On the first day, while I'm taking care of first day things- attendance, supplies, etc - they'll get to decorate their own privacy folder.
 
 

Sorry for the glare in these pictures. I'm keeping my basketball theme and these are the kiddos nametags for their desks.
 



Desk Supply Caddy - love how clean and organized it looks at the beginning.
 

Labeled supplies - helps keep everyone organized!
 

MVP (Student of the Week) Board and Core Learning Skills and Values board (part of Edison school)
 

Classroom Leaders Board - this is where I have class jobs. Kids can be the leader of clean, leader of lunch, etc.
 

Student Computer Area - this area needs some work and some replaced screens lol
 
 

Teacher Computer Area for Smart Board
 

Teacher Desk and Area (sorry it's kinda blurry)
 

View from my desk
 

View from the class library
 

View from the front door
 

View from the back of the classroom
 

I Can's are up and ready for the first day!
 
 
Thanks for checking out my pictures - sorry for the multitude of pictures, but had to celebrate finally getting it all done!  Hope everyone has a good weekend! 
 
 

Work In Progress - Classroom Update - Day #5

So, I'm to the exhausted, delirious point that all teachers reach at some point during back to school set up. The other day I literally was walking around with the stapler in my hand trying to find my stapler.  I think we've all had moments like that :-).  Today we only had a few hours in the afternoon to work in our classrooms after many hours of school professional development.  Here's the current state - I'm almost ready to take the work in progress label off of it.  After five days (not full days) of work....

The beginnings of my new bucket filling area.
 

Clip Chart all hung up and ready to go!
 

View from the door of my classroom.  Trying to get all the "stuff" put away.
 

My MVP Board - then it'll be the kiddos turn as the weeks go on.
 

My desk area. I always like to put up some personal pictures and old school pictures - not sure why this picture turned out so blurry.
 

My new lesson plan bins. Saw this idea on Pinterest and decided to try it out for storing daily materials.
 

View from the front of my classroom.
 
Almost done and I need to be because school starts Monday and we have an all day training off site tomorrow. Anyways - bedtime for me!

Lesson Plan Binder

If you've read a few of my blog entries, you know I love my binders for organization. Each year I get so excited to get a new lesson plan binder. It's almost like when I was a kid and I was so excited to pick out my new backpack for back to school.  Well, binders are now my backpacks.  The Pinterest person in me can't just have a plain binder, I have to make a cute cover.  See below..


At my new school, we have some extra programs that I need to keep info on and be organized about.  I decided on 8 tab dividers to help keep not only my plans organized, but also school info. Here are my tabs below:
  • Lesson Plans
  • School Info
  • Student Info
  • Behavior
  • Schedules
  • Common Core
  • Core Values
  • Core Learning Skills
 
Hope everyone has a good night!


Work In Progress - Classroom Update - Day #4

So, here's the latest installment of my classroom updates.  Today was the fourth day working in my classroom and I went in ready to be productive and actually was lol.   Funny how putting up a few bulletins and moving the desks makes it seem more like classroom.  Here's the latest...(again - work in progress)

Lit Station Signs and Reading Bulletin

Math Bulletin for Math Common Core Vocab

Math Stations Signs and the number line that took me forever to get just right.

Don't mind the messy desk - I still have a lot of cleaning to do.  Calendar area for Math

Another bulletin - Data Wall eventually

Classroom Leaders (class jobs) - Once I get my class list I'll have student names up here. Makes it super easy to switch jobs each week.

At my new school, they have a number of bulletin board requirements. Since there is only so much wall space I decided to divide this one bulletin I made into 3.  The first one is for MVP (Most Valuable Player) or my version of Student of the Week to fit in with my basketball theme.

All Star Work - clothespins to clip up student work


Reading Common Core Vocab Board and Thinking Maps now posted!

One view of the room from my front door. Finally got my desks grouped where I want them. Again, lots of clutter and stuff, but that'll be cleaned up by the time kiddos arrive next Monday.

View from the other side of the room

Awesome gift bag door prize that I got at my new benefits meeting.  I got a teacher cart (not pictured) and a bunch of supplies - notebooks, binders, markers, crayons, Expo markers, Kleenex, etc.  I was so excited to win this great door prize.
 
Hope everyone else had a good Monday!

Brain Breaks Bucket

I know this is a topic I've talked about in previous posts, but I found a different way to select Brain Breaks to change it up a bit.  Now, I didn't come up with this new way of selecting Brain Breaks on my own - I got the idea from Heather Haupt.  I saw it on Pinterest a few weeks ago and tweaked it to fit my classroom needs.

First, I decorated a new little bucket to hold all of my brain breaks. I also printed each brain break on a card to go in the bucket and laminated it to make it more durable.  I got the cute frames used on my cards from 3AM Teacher.  She has awesome graphics.   This way each time we go to do a brain break I can pick a different one out of the bucket. Makes it a little more fun!  These brain breaks include simple ones like jumping jacks and also some of the "Just Dance - Kid Disney" videos that I found on YouTube.  Check out my post here on how to make YouTube videos safe to use in the classroom using Safeshare.

 
 
 



New Clip Chart!

I finally have made my new Clip Chart for my new classroom.  I went simple with just the traditional colors, but I love how it turned out. There's just something about a fresh new Clip Chart - weird I know, but it must be a teacher thing.  This year instead of clothespins with names on the side, I'm going to use student numbers.  So, I'll put the odd numbers on one side and the even on the other, so there is enough room in the "Ready to Learn" section.  Still need to laminate the chart, but here are a few pictures below..

To find out more about how I use the Clip Chart, see this blog post here.

Colored paper all cut and glued!
 

Brand new Clip Chart.  Sorry at home so all I had to hang it on was the door to the garage :-).
 
Hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Work in Progress - Classroom Update

So I finished Day #3 of working in my classroom. We only had about half of the day to work in our rooms since we had another new teacher meeting in the morning.  I got more done yesterday and am starting to see a classroom coming together out of the mess.  I got more boxes out, which helps. See my progress below (again, major warning - I still have a lot of work to do!)

One cabinet full! Lots of teacher books, extra math manipulatives, and academic games.
 

Second cabinet full. This one is kind of a miscellaneous cabinet - a little bit of this, a little bit of that. I don't have a lot of storage except for these two cabinets so it's not organized 100% to my liking, but it's workable. In this cabinet, I have extra supplies, teaching supplies, board games for Fun Friday, and extra containers.
 
 

View from my teacher area. As you can see - less boxes today :-)!  My first goal on Monday is to get the desks put in place so I can see what space I'm working with.
 

View from the front door. Yes, still a mess, but I'm getting there.
 

View of my small group area.  This table is a little big, but they're trying to get some more kidney tables which will fit better. I'm going to use that white storage drawer set for small group stuff.
 

My beautiful new bookshelves that my lovely boyfriend put together for me. Got these two Target bookshelves at Target in the college section for $17 a piece- great deal! This will house supplies for the students to access and writing materials.  I still have room so I'll post a picture when I fully figure out how I'm going to use these bookshelves.
 
 
Thank you for checking out my progress.  Slowly, but surely I'm getting there.