I swear I used to love rainy days! I know that's an odd way to start my post, but today is rainy and right now I'm hating it. No, I'm not running a marathon and I don't have big plans. Well, I do have kind of big plans if you count creating new centers, updating files, and making morning work for the second nine weeks. What does that have to do with rain you ask? All I want to do right now is take a nap. I slept nine hours last night, took a four hour nap this morning, and I believe I could go for another nap now. There is something about chasing after munchkins all day and rain that makes you feel like you could sleep for hours and hours.
Now, real quick, do not miss out on the Back to School sale. TPT is throwing their sale tomorrow and Monday. Remember you can earn extra credits if leave feedback on products you have purchased in the past. TPT is also giving 10% off after my 20% off. Don't forget to put in their code - BTS13.
Also, I promised at some point in the last few weeks pictures of my classroom, so I am delivering now! I took LOTS of pictures last week to share. Hope you like them!
This is how I handle discipline in my classroom. Instead of moving a clip, my students move corn. It sounds silly, but it fits my theme. Since it's the back of a book shelf, I hot glued the magnets onto the tractor. I didn't want to do Velcro because it pulls too much. The magnets release easier. I also put my listening center in this area. On the stereo, there are several stickers to help my kids know what buttons to press.
This is my computer area. I have lamps all over my classroom. I rarely turn on the overhead lights. They tend to give me a headache. I painted two book posters and put them over my computers.
Yes, that's Christmas lights around my Activboard. I don't know why, but I leave them up year around. They add a little extra light to the room and make me smile, so they stay. One of my friends also made me the numbers to hang around my clock. It helps a ton when I work on teaching time to my kiddos. My book bins from Really Good Stuff are stored underneath the Activboard. I bought two bookshelves and left the shelves out so I could store more book bins.
Another trick I learned is I made my kids tags for their book bins, laminated them, and then wrote their names on them. The bins come with tags and a piece of plastic to slide over it, but they fell out constantly last year. My kiddos keep five to six books, bookmarks, book report sheets, and headphones in their book bins.
The stool was a cheap, white one I found in the kids' room area at Target. I painted it to match my theme. My students use it to reach the Activboard if they need it.
This is my desk area. As you can see, I don't have a desk. I have a table. It was the best decision I've ever made. The seats are storage ottomans from Target. They cost around $17. I have 12 in my room and they come in handy. I use the bookshelves that are against my back wall to hold Sterelite drawers. The drawers have all of the stuff that used to be in my desk drawers. I also bought a wireless keyboard and mouse several years ago, so I can have up to five students sit with me when they need help.
These are two of my groups. I saw online several years ago how a teacher had her desks come out of the walls. Since I have an Activboard, I don't use my boards for much anymore, so I thought that was a neat idea. These two groups have cubbies from Target on the ends. I did this for two reasons. First of all, it helps to keep my students from moving their desks around too much. It also is a great place to sit a few things like mini trashcans and containers to hold markers, hand sanitizer, glue sticks, and scissors.
This is a picture of my dry erase board. I used borders to section it off. I haven't written my schedule on here yet because I know we are still adjusting it. One of my teammates found the Writer's Eye set at
The First Grade Parade and the word cards at
Busy Teacher Cafe. I loved the Writer's Eye set, but wanted it to match my theme, so I recreated it to fit my classroom.
This is the front of my room. I ended up repainted my book storage easel. I keep tissues, pencils, and new books on top of it. It also blocks this pencil sharpener since it doesn't work.
On the other side, I made clips that have magnets. I use them to hold my hall passes. It keeps them from getting left around the room.
This is my front door. I found blue jean paper, taped it onto white poster board, and laminated it. I was determined that if I was going to have a farm theme that I would also have a blue jean door. I hang my rules on the door with a clip and cow ribbon.
Outside of my door is my awning. My mom and I bought white canvas and red fabric when I decided to switch my theme several years ago. I don't know if you've ever tried to find cow print fabric, but it's either really ugly or really expensive. This was much more affordable. I just painted the fabric and left it with my mom. She sewed it together for me. She also got the farm rug that's at the entrance of my room.
This is a picture of the wall next to my front door. When I first started teaching, I saw someone store items under their coat racks. My kids have learned to put their jackets in their backpacks and then put them on the top of the rack leaning to the left. I've done this for eleven years and it has worked beautifully.
I also bought all of the containers eleven years ago. The monthly containers contain things I know I will need during those months that are too big to store just anywhere. I also store extra art supplies, goody box treats, and school supplies in this area. Next up, I really need to get labels for the outside of the containers that tell what is in each container.
The desk is one that my grandfather found in a house he was remodeling around seven years ago. I painted it to match my theme. The kids like to sit in it sometimes to read or to do work.
This is my entire front wall. The bookcase is where I store all of my Reading A-Z books and all of my other guided reading books.
This bookcase has more books. My goal is to really build this bookcase up this school year. We switched to Daily 5/CAFE and Lexile last year, so it's taking me some time to get this section of my room completely done.
This is where I keep most of my word work stuff, books on CD, and all of my BR-100 books. The middle basket has individual CD players and Rockstars.
This is half of my room. I completely forgot to turn the lights on, but it's a pretty accurate picture. I have a table in the middle of my room so my students can sit there for small group or to have a quiet place to work. The barn has days of the week, and months of the year, plus a couple of posters. The windows have magnets so I can hang math vocabulary words or more posters.
This is the front half of my room. The picture makes it look a little more cramped than it is. My room looks huge when you are in it. Well, as big as it can look :)
This is a picture of the wall across from my room. It is between all of the first grade rooms. Each year, we get crayons and stars. The crayons are used for our math fluency wall and the stars are for our Fry words. As students meet a goal, they get to put their stars up. This year, my color is red. Each of us gets a different color so it's easier for our students to find their names.
Here are a few more random up close shots of some of my favorite things in my room.
Goody boxes for my class.
Flowers from my hubby on the first day. My favorite part is he knows how much I love sunflowers and to top it off, he made sure that he ordered flowers that would go with my theme. I love that he always takes time to do that.
Last of all, now that school is back in session, I will start having freebies again. Hope you enjoy them! If I make any mistakes (even on freebies) feel free to email me so I can fix it. As for requests, right now I can't make changes, adjustments, or Daily 5/CAFE stuff to match my other freebies. With school starting back and trying to get the morning work packets and several other packets done, I am running full speed.
Have a great night and enjoy the sale!
My sweet teammate Pamela and I were working on lesson plans last week and wanted to come up with a fun activity to do with our kids. One of the stories we were reading this week was "Jack and Rick" which is a story about a bear and a bunny. Pamela commented that we should create a bear hunt with our words. I had just bought my class clip boards a few days before, so I told her that it would be fun to let the kids search for the bears on our hallway.
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This is a picture of the wall next to my front door. When I first started teaching, I saw someone store items under their coat racks. My kids have learned to put their jackets in their backpacks and then put them on the top of the rack leaning to the left. I've done this for eleven years and it has worked beautifully.
