Classroom Tour!! (2015)

Hey everyone! I'm back with Blog Hoppin to share my classroom this year! I so wanted to join in yesterday's posts but I received a new (non-English speaking) student and between trying to help that cutie out and still in the groove of back to school, I was pooped!


Anyway, I am so excited to share the massive amount of pictures I have of my classroom. I have a new, large classroom this year an the amount of space excites me every time I walk into it. Disclaimer: I am not a photographer so my pictures may range between dark and light and horrible and great lol. You may also notice that some things are different in one shot than another and that's because some pictures were taken at different parts of the day. 

I promise to edit this post and include links to where certain products are from, but for now, just pictures and quick descriptions. So here goes:

This is the what you see when you first enter my room. I took a picture of my door and my wreath which was Pinterest inspired but can't even find the picture. The schedule cards are in my store and you can find them here.

This is my birthday board where I put kids pictures up under each month. You can find it here. 

Bathroom and Classroom Jobs.

Kids can grab activities out of the drawers or take the whole drawer to a desk around the room for their word work center. The labels can be found here. You can see some teacher resources on the floor for small group. I also lost my y from the glue bottles lol. It fell one day and disappeared.  

Small Group Table

Next to that is my Wonder Wall - during different lessons the kids write down things they wonder, questions they have, or predictions they have made. 

A closer look at my rotation chart. My district doesn't do Daily 5 anymore so it took a little while to figure out how I wanted to set up rotations with all the different centers we have now. You can see I forgot to print out a label lol. Had to be a "problem solver" as I tell my kids. 

Here is a closer look at how I plan to switch out the centers daily. 



Here I put math centers & manipulative. The rolly cart holds games that I will switch out into the tubs. The kids are only allowed to touch the first drawer and the cookie sheets when it is time for place value.  


Next up is my Book Nook. The top shelf holds read aloud books that I will use for my curriculum and/or when a substitute is in. I got the READ letters from Michaels, painted them pastel colors, then used a stencil with white paint to add some flair. 


Labels are from here. I separated some of the book boxes to decrease the traffic jams during centers. 

This is the view from the Book Nook. 

Next to the Book Nook is the technology center and Literacy bulletin board. I hang anchor charts, posters, and other related materials on this board. 


The technology center in my room includes the listening center. You can see that below with my iPads I received from Donors Choose. 

The rainbow basket is where students turn in classwork. The brown basket holds reading buddies of read aloud or in the Book Nook. I still haven't found a spot I really like for it so it's there for now. You can also see my fan in the background lol. My room is very humid. 

Here is my teacher desk. Everything is built into the room so there's no removing it for me. My calendar is also behind my desk. I have assigned a student who is in charge of keeping it updated and the whole class does calendar on the smart board. My guided reading books are on top of my desk - I plan to reorganize & move them soon and then put them in my cupboards .. but I'm super lazy.



You can find my tool box labels in my other post here. My iPod dock has all my Kidz Bop songs on it. 

Here are my front boards. Yes, I have to write all of these I can statements lol. 


I track the noise level in the classroom with those letters. This board also holds our exploration question for the day - which is pretty much the focus point of all our lessons. 

Classroom rules and Brag Tags. So far the kids really like them. Only one kid has snuck hers home and not brought it back. I told her she wouldn't be getting a replacement so we will see if she returns it. The name labels for the brag tags are from here. 

Next up is my math talk board and my word wall. 

The word wall letters are from here. The banner on the wall is from here. 

This counter holds my brag tag storage container, tidy tubs, pencils, my buckets that organize the classwork/assignments for the week. 



And last but not least is my writing center. In the blank spaces I will be posting anchor charts and student work. 

Here are just some different views of my room. 




Thanks for sticking around! I hope you enjoy my room as much as I do :) 

5 Fun Facts!!

Hey guys! I'm linking up with Blog Hoppin' for day 1 of Teacher Week 2015! Today is 5 facts about me and since I have yet to update my About Me section, now is a good time :) 




1. I have been married to this gem for 2 years now. We have been together for 6 years and got married 8/2/2013. Which is conveniently my younger sister's birthday - but everyone who's been married knows that Friday weddings are cheaper lol.


2. I HATE strongly dislike school! Isn't that ironic? Lol. In high school I was kind of a floater  - I floated on by through my classes haha. In college I didn't enjoy classes until they were directly related to education and although I like what I'm studying in grad school, I just don't want to be there haha. Luckily I have 3 classes until I graduate and am a certified reading teacher. 

3. I'm born and raised in Maryland where the seasons are intense and the crabs are delicious! I love Maryland with all of it's annoying weather/humidity. It's such a diverse place and you can drive 30 minutes in any direction and see something new. 

 

4. I was on Fear Factor earlier this year!! 


Okay, granted it was Fear Factor at Universal Studios, but it was still scary just the same! See I like to try new things so I signed up BUT I definitely did not think I was going to be chosen haha. I was out in the first round because it consisted of hanging 20+ feet in the sky holding on to an angled type pull up bar. You can say your not afraid of heights all you want to, but once you get up there and don't see the ground and your hands start sweating, it's terrifying!

5. I love all things Harry Potter :) I read the series annually and binge watch the movies. I wanted to go to Universal Studies JUST to visit Harry Potter World. You can see Kreacher up there in the window. If you know what I'm standing in front of then you're awesome!



Alright, that's 5 fun facts about me! Thanks for reading :) 

First Week is Over! ((FREEBIE))

Okay before I get into my first week, can we all just take a minute to check out my new blog design?! *Moment of silence to look around and click things* It's beautiful and I love it! It's so me: colorful and pretty, yet simple. The wonderful Yukari designed my blog and she was fabulous to work with. Her pricing is amazing and she was even able to start my design a week early. You should definitely check out her blog if your looking for a new design. 

Now to talk about my first week. I promise will try to make this short and sweet! 

I have 22 little first graders and I completely forgot just how small they would be! Seeing them so tiny and fresh faced brought me back to reality that summer is over lol. 

This week we spent a lot of time going over routines and procedures, getting to know each other and trying to introduce the new curriculum (which I will need to dedicate a whole post for). For some reason I like to take most of my pictures during math so you'll see a few pictures of math last week. 

I introduced a few games the kids will be playing during math centers and during Structure Discourse & Play. They learned to play "Domino Addition War" - you know, I Declare War with addition. As well as the traditional I Declare War. And let me tell you, they love this simple game. 



I also introduced a simple partner game to review number sequencing called Start & Stop. The kids work with a partner, pick a card, write the number on the card in the left box and write down the next 5 numbers. Then their partner checks their work using a 120 chart. 



Book Nook was introduced to my class on Wednesday. We have a lot of work ahead of us but I'm confident my littles will get there. I mean, it was only the 1st week of school. 


During social studies we held a lot of discussions on how they have grown and changed since kindergarten. We ended the week talking about classroom/school responsibilities. We came up with this list of things the students are responsible for when they are at school (love that one kid said keep your mouth to yourself!) and everyone signed their name. This is like their "responsibility contract" and they will be held accountable for them. 



The whole week we reviewed writing complete sentences. Our curriculum wants us to jump straight into Lucy Calkins, BUT let's be real, first graders need a review on sentence structure...and Lucy doesn't really cover that.




Other random parts of the week that I didn't get pictures of include teaching my students how to play Jenga & Connect 4 for Structured Discourse & Play, as well as a lot of counting games and read alouds.

Okay so maybe this wasn't short and sweet like I said but I appreciate you sticking around to read about my first week. And for that, I am going to provide you with a totally random, unrelated to this post, FREEBIE. 

I have black chevron set of storage box labels in my TPT store that you can find here. I wanted to make a polka dot set to match the other decor in my room so I quickly made these one week. You can click here to grab this freebie. 

Thanks for stopping by!