Classroom Tour 2013

It has been 2 weeks since I posted...not gonna promise a lapse won't happen every now and then, but I hope to get on a better blogging schedule!  Last week was my last week of vacay and we spent it at the lake.  It was AMAZING...I hated to leave!



Then this past week was back to work.  We were furloughed 2 days at the beginning of our preplanning (ugh) but then the school board decided to push back the start date of school to give us those 2 days of planning regardless.  Since they also had scheduled mandated offsite training for the first part of the week, that was probably wise.  Anyway, my room is ready!  I took before and after pictures to share.  I love my black and white polka dots and I got lots of ideas this summer from Pinterest, other blogs, and TpT!

Before pictures:

I know...my classroom has the most RANDOM conglomeration of carpet...and that yellow wall!  I can't stand how it takes up about 75% of the back wall...not half, not the whole thing...it goes to the cinder block BEFORE the window and just stops.  Ugh!  


My teacher desk piled high with stuff!
 And after pictures...


















The front of my door is the same as it was last year with the only addition being "Welcome Class of 2025."  The hot pink sign on the back of the door says "Two college graduates learn and teach in this classroom.  Where will you go after high school?  What will you do?"  (I got the idea from a pin on Pinterest...unfortunately it links to a picture that has been deleted on a teacher forum so I can't link up.)

Welcome sign in the hall...I do have more polka dot ribbon for the bottom bulletin board strip, just haven't gotten around to putting it back up.  (I took it down last year because the whole school goes by my door on the way to science lab and my push pins holding it in place kept getting stolen...need to hot glue it!)


We put this easel out in the hallway for Open House!  My room is at the end of a loonnggg hallway and is a little separated from the other first grade classes, so I thought this would be a good way to let people know that we're down there!


This isn't new but I thought I'd take a picture because lots of people comment on it when they visit my room.  My emergency clipboard hangs right by the door.  I keep a current roster on it along with the roll checklist we have to send in for a drill.  I know of course that I need these things if the alarm sounds, but the big letters on the top sheet remind anyone else who may be in charge of my class (sub, para, co-teacher) that they need it (also, the people who are less likely to be able to rattle off the roll by memory like I can.)

This is what the wall where the door is looks like! I copied the clocks idea which was ALL over Pinterest last summer (it originated from Keeping Up with The Kindergartners).  Love it!  I will have to change my clock hands because the master schedule changed.  Also, it wasn't really 7:25 when I took this picture...my clock battery has died and I am not tall enough to reach it (even on a chair) so I'm waiting for the nice janitor to take care of it for me. :)

I hope you can read the words on this poster.  I LOVE it.  The quote is from Rita Pierson.  If you have not seen her TED talk, you MUST.  Go on, go do it now...I'll wait for you...it's the most inspiring thing I've seen since Kid President's Pep Talk!  I made the poster...it's not perfect but it makes me happy!  We are going to recite her message every morning during our Morning Meeting.  I think the message is powerful, don't you?



This is my standards board.  We have to post the standard/element and the Essential Q for every subject.  I print mine out on neon paper and put them up with those magnets.  We were told that we don't have to stress over "real" lesson plans for the first two weeks so this will be pristine for a while.  I'll try to remember to post a picture of what it looks like with everything clipped up.  I also like to display my thematic read-alouds on that chalk tray...it just makes the room that much cheerier! These are all of my Back to School books...I felt like I was seeing old friends when I pulled them out yesterday!  (Pete...David...Chrystanthemum...Lily...Wemberly...love them all!)




 We will be doing Jitter Juice for our first Focus Poem!  I wrote it up on chart paper today so it's ready to go Monday.  Peeking out from behind it you can see part of the letter I had last year's firsties write to the new class...it's precious.  


My Word Wall!  I am so proud of this and I have high hopes for it this year.  I have seen many magnetic word walls on Pinterest and the idea has appealed to me for a while...I was just lazy, I guess!  This used to be my calendar board and my word wall used to be on the bright yellow wall.  I loved having Calendar Math on this board (so easy to change everything out when it's on magnets) but my co-teacher convinced me to make the switch.  We have the letters printed on neon cardstock (color-coordinated according to the sight words list) and one of my student teachers' projects next week will be to hot glue the magnets on them.  We plan to do content area parking lots under the board on chart paper and the black and white hanging cookie sheet to the right will be our parking lot.



Speaking of Calendar...this is what it looks like now.   The months and days of the week (along with lots of other polka dotted printables!) are from a pack I got from My Not So Elementary Life.  I made the other mini posters myself.  We will add some more things to Calendar as time goes on, but in the beginning I keep it pretty simple.

Here is our teacher corner...it looked a lot more organized by the time we left this afternoon, I promise!  This is a slight change from last year and I think we're going to like it!  (PS:  We call our desks a "no fly" zone because kids are not allowed to "fly" over to or behind our desks without permission.  I really want to make a cute sign that says that!  I am almost never at my desk during the day, but if I am it's usually because I am testing, progress monitoring, or taking care of paperwork that has to be done right that second.

Also...that's the weather wheel on the front of my co-teacher's desk...it looks kind of lonely hanging there by itself, but in the next week or so we will start to add weather words as we talk about them (on magnets!  hey-ya!) and that will be another place to put print.  

This is what the whole shebang looks like from the door...
And this is how it looks 85% of the time with the lamps on.  Seriously-we only turn the overhead lights on for certain parts of the day.  It's plenty bright with the lamps and the window blinds open. 


So I realized after uploading all these pictures that I didn't do anything of the back corner of my room or the classroom library...I'll do a Classroom Tour Part 2 next week to show those!  There's a whole other corner/side to my classroom that we use-don't know how I missed it!  Ooops!

You may notice that a lot of the wall space is blank...that's intentional.  Both my co-teacher and I subscribe to the school of thought that says most of the wall space should be covered with either lesson artifacts (AKA anchor charts) or student work.  We don't do much for "cute"...everything that goes up has a purpose.  By this time next week, there will be lots more on these walls!

1 comment

  1. Your little angel is adorable.

    I love your classroom decor...that color scheme is fabulous!!
    Crystal
    Ms. Jones’ Junction

    ReplyDelete