Where I Teach Wednesday

If I'm being completely honest, I love and loathe setting up my classroom.  :)  I LOVE it, because I really enjoy the artistic/creative side of decorating, and I really enjoy seeing the end result.  I LOATHE it, because I am WAY too Type A, and it ends up taking me FOREVER to complete.  Even as I add my classroom pictures, I have to admit that they aren't 100% up to date.  I've added three more zebra hanging lanterns and moved things around a tad.  The good news is... I was ready for kiddos when they showed up for the FIRST DAY today.  Yay!  Okay friends, let's take a tour.  Shall we? As they used to say on Cribs... "This is where the magic happens".

The blue Alaska sign is a freebie in my shop.  The Peacemaker book is from The First Grade Parade.

The hand signals are from Rachel Lamb.  The Word of the Week sign is from my Literacy Aficionados pack.  The  Word on the bus printable is from Jessica Williamson's blog.  :)  So cute.  The classrooms specials sheets are from Teaching in Flip Flops.  I also want to give you a heads up!  The border is fabulous and magnetic!  Be on the lookout for another giveaway!

Note:  I am using this board differently than Ladybug wrote about on her blog.  I'm just going to post author's craft mini-lessons and anchor charts in this space.  :)  It's not linked to the CAFE  board concept at all. Just fyi.

My reading charts will go here.

The glue bottles are from The Teacher Wife. 

The job spot printables are from Teaching in Flip Flops.

The balloons are from Teaching in Flip Flops... but the original idea is from the fabulous Rachelle Smith from What the Teacher Wants.  I just had to have a zebra print version... and this one was free.  Free is always a good thing!

As you can see, I got to stay in the same room this year, which THRILLS me! I have moved rooms/schools so many times... so it's nice to have some consistency.  :)  I also kept my color scheme and zebra print.  I just LOVE it so much, so I pretty much plan on tweaking it every year until I completely get sick of it.  I had a beach theme for years, and now I'm loving doing a slight safari theme... with a little extra flair.  I just can't get enough!

Ahhh!  Ignore the fact that my galvanized tubs are a little too far to the left on this one.  I just rearranged my entire room, and that meant that I had to move my conferring table.  It's at the back of the room now... and the room looks three times as big as it did when I had rows.  I just had WAY too many kids, and it was way too crowded.  Plus, I like the collaborative atmosphere of tables anyway.  The room is set up pretty much like my old room used to be back in my previous school district... if you can remember that far back.  Two years ago!  The only thing I don't like about this set-up is that my guided reading/ Work with Teacher goodies aren't right next to my table anymore.  I really liked having everything totally accessible, BUT it won't kill me to walk over to the bookcase either.  :)  I cover a lot of ground in one day anyway!

While we're on the topic of workstations, you'll notice that my room is still set up to accommodate the Daily 5.  I haven't changed a lot about the organization since last year.  It worked well for me!

The posters to the right are from Made for First Grade.

 

Well, there you have it!  That's my classroom in a nutshell.  Since today was the first day of school (with students) and since I had to drive an hour and twenty minutes to another campus for grad school... and then another hour and twenty minutes back to my house, I actually had to type this up on Sunday and schedule a post.  It was done in a big rush, so I am sure that I missed something or left some gaps.  Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll pop in tomorrow to fill in any gaping holes!  Happy Hump Day!

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