Classroom Reveal Part 3

Here is the final day of my classroom reveal. 

My attendance boards.  Of course I had to change them to monsters!

 

 

My "Where Are We" (with a monster head) and my "How are we going home?" monster board.

 

Standards Display (monster-fied)

My teacher area.  Do you see my buddy Sulley?  Remember how he was on my dining room table all summer long bringing me inspiration.  Now he's up high looking over my desk.

 

Noise Word and Sound Check

 

My desk (do you see the spinning arrow?  My son, who helped me do my room this year, thought it looked great there....so of course I had to keep it for now!)

 

This is what my kiddos will came into on the first day.  The MonSTAR Group of the Week will be for my winning group.  The group with the most warm fuzzies in their cup for the whole week will win.  They will keep it on their desks for the whole next week.  The frame is from IKEA.

 

MONSTARS at Work Board.  It's empty now waiting for some fun work.  The monsters peeking out were from Party City.  They were a centerpiece.  I LOVE them!

 

My paper turn in bin.  LOVE my sign!

 

 Well that is it....do you think my kiddos will have a monster-iffic year this year?  Here is hoping we all do.  Happy Back to School my bloggy friends!

 

Teacher Area

I finally succeeded in finding my desk!  Yeah!  I knew it was in there somewhere, but it took awhile to find it.  I wanted to take pictures of my teacher area for a couple of reasons:  1)  to show off my wonderful binders that I spent the summer organizing, and 2) to have proof of what this area looked like BEFORE the students came and I officially started using everything!

In this picture you will see my teacher's toolbox, my mystery birthday poster,

my marble jar, and a green bin that holds my comprehension prompts.

In this picture you will see my subject binders that hold my current chapters and

my Monday-Friday bins from Lakeshore.

Here is my desk.  Didn't it turn out cute???  You can see my Brain

Break sticks in the purple bin. 

Have a great day!

Classroom Pictures - Day 4

Hello everybody.  Here is day 4 of my classroom.  I'm sorry if it is dragged out, but I had so much I wanted to share, that I wanted to make sure I included everything.  I only have two pictures today...until tomorrow!  :)

Here is my reading board.  It is purple.  It is busy, I know, but there is so much that I teach in reading, that I had to have it all on there.  Under the board are my guided reading activities (with polka dots).  You will see my CAFE posters with my mystery theme.  I also have my PIE posters, my Super Kitty Reading Strategies, and my SPREADS reading strategy.

Here is a close up of my CAFE and Super Kitty reading strategies. I put the comprehension strategies that go under each of the components of CAFE under it at the beginning of the year.  When I teach a strategy I put a cute little smile by it.  That way when they learn a new strategy or review one we learned already, they can have a visual reminder of what type of strategy it is (and it is also a reminder to me to make sure they are all covered by the end of the year!).

I completely forgot to take a picture of my class library.  I will do that on Monday.  I'm heading back from Arlington today, so my next blog should be back in the wonderful Frankfort, Illinois!  And don't forget about the BIG Teachers Pay Teacher Sale today and tomorrow.  Everything in my store is 20% off!  Have a great night!

Classroom Pictures - Day 3

Hello everyone!  I'm still in Arlington, Virginia and using the schedule thingy from blogger so hopefully it'll work.  I have some more pictures of my classroom and a cool idea I came up with.

Here are my attendance boards.  As I showed in an earlier post, I made these from a magnetic chart that stands up.  On one it says:  whoooo is absent today (that one has all their number magnets on) and the other one says:  whoooo is here today?  The children will come into the room and move their button magnet to the here side.  One of my jobs is an attendance clerk.  They will tell me who is absent and they will also move back all the numbers onto the starting chart at the end of the day.  That way I'm ready for the next morning.  The basket to the right is where my students will put notes to me (of course it is blue, green, and has polka dots).

Here is under the chalkboard. Please don't mind the extension cord (I had a fan running because the air wasn't on in the classrooms yet) and the wonderful artistic rendering of Super Mario Brothers that my son drew on the board!  But anyways...I have my Wonder Wall, Vocabulary Treasure, and my Book Nook posters under there.  I still need to put all the board stuff up like:  homework list, pocket charts for spelling and vocabulary, schedule, etc...but I can't erase that drawing yet!

Here is my math board.  Coming down the pole are my math common core vocabulary from Ashleigh.  I decided to put them on ribbon together by topic.  I think the spot turned out great!  On top of the coat racks are the student's art buckets.  This is where their extra school supplies "live" since they don't fit in their desks.

Okay...so here is my great idea...I teach third grade.  Anyone who teaches third grade knows that the state tests are brutal for our third graders.  I usually take up 1 1/2 walls of space just to put up all the math posters I will need for the year.  Well since I moved to a smaller room, I didn't have the space.  So I thought about it for a long time and it finally hit me.  On the wall I have the unit I am currently teaching, so this first unit is place value, comparing numbers, and money.  Then on the hook I have all the posters I will use to teach math all year long.  The students can flip to any poster if they need refreshing and I can leave them there for the state testing because they are already up in my room.  Isn't that a great idea?  I punched a hole in the top left corner of each poster and used a rubber band to hang it on the hook.  My seven year old flipped around the posters to make sure they would be secure and it was easy enough for him to find a poster and....it worked!  I am soooo excited about this!  What do you think?


 Well, that's it for today.  I'll show you some more tomorrow.And don’t forget about the BIG back to school sale from Teachers Pay Teachers.  Everything in my store is20% off! Stop by my store and pick up some new items. Have a great night!

Classroom Pictures - Day 2

Hello everyone.  Today I will show you some more pictures of my classroom.  I tried using the schedule thing for posting this, so hopefully it works.  My son and I are in Arlington, Virginia for my niece and nephew's birthday parties.  A last minute trip that I didn't know I was gong to take.  But when you have a 4 and 7 year old asking if you and their cousin can make it...well what's a little 12 hour car ride?  Right?????

Here is my writing/English board.  It is red and I have a red bin here to hold my writing activities and my shared writing binders.  I used my Let's Bake Up Some Great Writing on the board.  I will have mini clothespins that the students will use to show where they are in the writing process.  My header says:  Inspect good writing traits!  I have the 6 traits writing posters above this board, but I forgot to take a picture of that.

Here is my behavior clip chart.  I don't keep it in the front of the room.  I usually use clothespins for the clip chart, but this year looks like I may have too many students.  So I'm using numbers with sticky tack on them for the students to move around with. I think hope they will all fit!

Here is the board I use to show student work (which is why it is blank).  I used green for this board.  Above the board are my How are you feeling about this topic? posters.  The small board I'll explain down one picture.

Here is my character education board.  My school uses PBIS as our district wide behavior.  Even though that is our district plan, I feel the need to still talk about character education traits.  On the top of the board I use different Argus posters to show a thought of the week.  I change it weekly.  To go along with that, I've added a character trait of the week.  I printed these awesome posters from Lisa Richling at TPT called Kids of Character: Character Education for Every Week of the School Year and I will change those once a week also.  On the bottom of this board are little library pockets that match my polka dots.  This is where I will keep track of the group that earned the most points each day.  I will show the buckets that go on their desks to collect points all day long another day.

And finally..next to the board is my mystery themed job chart.  Don't you just love the polka dots?! I use velcro to attach little magnifying glasses with each student's name to change the jobs.  I change my jobs every two weeks (I find this a lot more manageable).

Well, that's all for now.  I'll show more tomorrow!  Don’t forget about the BIG back to school sale from Teachers Pay Teachers.  Everything in my store is20% off! Stop by my store and pick up some new items. Have a great night!

Classroom Pictures - Day 1

I finally have some pictures of my classroom.  Now remember...I am doing a mystery theme, but I also used polka dots too.  I used the black border with dots from CTP for all my boards.  I then used a plain color for each board on the behind the black (looks so much better)!  I made headers for each of my board tying in my mystery theme.  And also remember....I moved into a smaller classroom this year.  So I had to start all over with where to put stuff and how to fit in all my bulletin boards.

This is my social studies board.  I am using a new curriculum this year.  I start the year off teaching about colonial life and the revolutionary war.  I use blue for social studies.  This includes bins for center activities and notebooks.  My header says:  Hot on the trail of social studies facts!  I also made a sign that says Revolutionary War (I hate putting bulletin board letters on my board...too much time finding the right letters and too many staples on my board)!  I couldn't bring myself to putting Pilgrims on here (it is only August) so I compromised and made the cute dog in the bottom right corner wearing a pilgrim type hat!

Here is my science board.  I use yellow for science.  I teach life cycles and cells for my first chapter in science.  See my new Lakeshore nonfiction/science comprehension center???  I have the yellow bin there to put learning centers/activities.  My header says:  Let's investigate science!  I don't know if you can see my chapter header, but it says:  Types of Living Things and it also has the Big Idea for the chapter on the sign.  The little signs on the left are my scientific method signs.

Here are my whole brain teaching signs (thank you to Stephanie from Third Grade Thoughts).  She has so many great things about whole brain teaching you really need to check it out.  I made my own sign that said "Ready? Set. Go!".  The rest are from Stephanie.  I thought they looked super cute by the cursive alphabet line.

Here are the rest of the whole brain teaching signs.  If you go to her blog, there is even a video that shows you how to teach with these posters.  Super cute video!

 

That's it for today.  Tomorrow I will show you some more of my classroom. 

One more thing...I jumped on the Teachers Pay Teachers bandwagon.  They are having their BIG back to school sale and I decided to join in the fun with my first sale.  Everything in my store is 20% off! Stop by my store and pick up some new items.   Have a great night!

Freebie and 1st Day in my Classroom

My creative team (okay it was my mom, my son, and myself but it makes it sound more important saying my creative team) went in yesterday to my classroom for the first time.  I moved to a SMALLER, smaller, did I mention smaller, room.  I was tossing and turning most nights trying to imagine if my furniture would fit.  After 3 hours it fits!  What a relief! 

I don't know about you, but I stress over my classroom every year.  As you probably know, I change my theme every year, so that adds to the stress.  I am planning on going in again next week with my creative team and empty my boxes.  Then I'm hoping I can start the fun stuff...decorating...the following week.  That is the fun part!  I can't wait.  I will take pictures the next time I go in.

On another note, I like to give my students a healthy snack for the first full day of school.  It is a long day and I like them to have energy to make it through.  I buy the smile fruit snacks from WalMart and attach this little tag to it.  If you like it, click on the picture and it's yours.