The Cloudy Visage of Sunrise: Welcome To My Classroom

Welcome sign magnet for my portable building classroom door.

Indoor bulletin board shared with another teacher my frogs are on the left.

Been a while. I got the keys to my classroom and been working hard getting my new school/year off and running. It has been quite a journey finding all the things I want and need for my new room. I was really given a lot of freedom in how my classroom was to be put together and even what I do as far as instruction as long as it is grounded in standards I am good.

What a dream, I think I have my dream job at my dream school! What could be better than that! I am hoping that you enjoy the pictures I am sharing of my classroom. Let me briefly describe the process in which I chose what I chose. Let me start with my carpet area. The best way to describe this area is to admit I am addicted to Velcro. I put a felt wall up and bought two rugs to try to fit my students on a teacher chair that I have used since I broke my knee in two places a few years ago. So far I have a place value depositor, coin and bill changers. ordinal number depositor, number line to144 in an ABCDEFGHIJ pattern, count by book based on pattern of the number line, calendar, 9 weeks Fry words, story retelling, Whole brain teaching rules, and CAFÉ menu.

Teacher area. Coming from kindergarten really helped me understand the use of space being driven by the needs of children. I was so glad to see that my classroom did not have a teacher desk! I was able to put my two pink file cabinets that have one small supply type drawer each on it for pens ect underneath my horse shoe table. They lock too which makes it nice desk like feature. I also have several small metal shelves to put my supplies and the students reading group supplies on. I put the teacher computer directly behind the horse shoe. I have also have a fridge and microwave. Also have a small grey shelf to fit my copy machine on. Instead of having a desk top calendar I found a dry erase wall sticky one. I also put all my degrees, high school diploma, and two university honor society certificates up.

Daily 5 Centers:

Reading center is always the corner stone of my classroom. I believe the reading center should be the place where all the children want to go because it is so inviting and well loved. It is where read to self and read to someone starts, where IPICK takes place. Where my students grow a love for reading and learning! I have always had the two kimmi Ikea chairs and they are the focal point when designing a new reading center in each of my classrooms. I found them at a thrift store, as well as the purple round chair. I also have a small coffee table for my center, often putting special books on it for children to look at. The shelves are all grey in my classroom so they do not overwhelm the children with color as I like colorful things, grey goes well with everything. I found a rug at Big Lots that fit my area perfect and matched the color of my Kimmi chairs perfectly. I had two areas between the shelves so I fit a tree in each to go with my outside pondy critter theme. I have printed and hung cute frog daily 5 reminders around the room.

Writing center is more of a supply center. There is not a lot of room in my classroom and with the importance of reading center to my philosophy of teaching so goes writing as an important counterpart. First I wanted to start off with a writing desk with a lamp that would hold supplies for my students to use during daily 5 times. They will have to take it back to their desks for working on but that should work fine. I got the cute lamp at TJ Max on the clearance isle for $10! I have book making supplies, fancy scissors, pencils, sharpener, colored pencils, markers, special papers, pads, glue, construction paper, and an electric stapler.

Word work is a supply shelf a bulletin board and a pocket chart. The supply shelf will have the activities on top each week that I want them to do during work time. There are supplies hidden behind the froggy pink and white fabric curtains so I can easily sit them out. The bulletin bard will have a boggle/word twist the kids can do, and the pocket chart is for our weekly spelling words.

Listening center has a radio and a few supplies in it. The school is really lacking in supplies and activities for listening center; thank goodness I have a chapter book on cd that we can start with. I have a record player but at some point the needle got broken now I have to find a new needle to play music with L.

Word work and listening centers are the two grey shelves on the left wall.

I am lucky to have one white board and one chalk board. I have a projector and screen but right now it does not work at the moment.

Other areas of interest: My focus wall, and my made from scratch closet with word wall doors!