My Classroom

Ask and you shall receive.....well, sometimes anyway! 

A friend and fellow blogger (and much better blogger I should say) asked me to post pics of my classroom. Here it is!

Guiding principles (for me) in setting up my classroom:

1. My classroom is designed for students with a reflection of who I am. It is not my space. It is our space. It is not my dorm, my living room, my cozy space. It is for the children. 

2. Yes, it is done. Color words, shapes, bulletin boards, birthdays, etc will be created with my students. I will anchor their understanding and reference points by putting these things up with my college bound first graders. Our room is a work in progress.

3. Books will be everywhere and they will have access to almost all of them. This was hard for me-I love "MY" books, but they should be the ones reading them, loving them, holding them, and talking about them with each other. 

4. If nothing else is done, my dry erase board will be clean at the end of every day. Don't know why, but for some reason, it makes me feel like the rest of the room is neat. (It never it is.) I also can't use the erasers, I have to actually clean it. Freak obsession-I know.

My Smartboard and storage bench. I can't tell you how much I love this. A teacher at my school makes them from scratch-woodwork, handpaints, amazing. Go here to see more. 

READ banner above the window. This is from Party City. My teammates had to help me with this. They know "cute" is not my strength or desire. It is only right because of them!! I love it and it makes me smile.

Books by author and category. Ex. Melanie Watt,  Feelings, ABC books, etc.

Informational books and graphic novels. Strange combo, but it works! Ex. Space, BabyMouse, dinosaurs, movie favs, etc.

One of my bulletin boards and they all look like this. I love the blue and I really love the B&W collection from CTP!

Number line. Has words, tally marks and numerals 0-20.

Leveled books from reading series.  Not a huge fan of the books, but they come in handy sometimes.

Aaah! Theme books and books I have marked up for teaching reading/writing. This method has replaced having them in tubs. Suggestions welcome. They are divided by topic/theme. 

Math materials.

More math. The top shelf houses Daily 5 math tubs. LOVE!!!!

Word wall

Daily 5 math. Cards with each game will be added as I intro them to my class. It is color coordinated. All brain game cards will be orange and the tub is orange. (See above.)

All smiles. This is above our door and we like to say it at the end of the day.

Writer's workshop area. We are writing with pens this year! Woo hoo!

Supplies.

More books! These are sorted by author, character, etc. Ex. Clifford, Skippy, Dr. Seuss,  Laura Numeroff, etc. They are leveled within their basket. 

Brag shelf. This area really is all about me. :)

Teacher resources. Um, yeah.

Language Arts games. 

The closet! No way! Trust me--you do not want to see in there!! :)

What do you think? HA! I'm kidding. It's too late for me to change anything! However, feel free to share tips for August of 2013! Happy school year teacher friends!