My Classroom Reveal!

Alright, I think my room is ready for the kiddos next Wednesday! I really like my room this year. I like my theme and I like the set up changes that I made. Here is my main learning area/focus wall with calendar, helpers, library, Starfish of the Week aka Student of the Week, and some other goodies that are hiding like my treasure box! This is my favorite spot!

This wall is my "Swimming to Success" data wall, but currently without the fish. However, their first scale to earn/goal is "I can write my name". The other wall is the "Dive into Writing" wall, which I also love because I can display their work in prong folders continuously throughout the year and flip through it whenever I want to see progress!

This space is my teacher corner for guided reading groups. I am pretty excited about guided reading groups this year, because I am totally changing up my teaching based on fabulous things I learned at conferences this summer. I made sure to set my reading tools close by so that I will actually use all of them instead of digging into multiple cabinets to find things or forgetting what things I actually have! I also bought composition books this year to try out interactive notebooks for ELA and Math. That mess on the table is my rainbow salt trays for painting letters that I am working on.

And the other half of the wall continues to display student work. I am going to display student work differently this year. I am all about saving time and making things easier for me this year! So I have binder clips that will make it quick and easy to clip up projects and "Fintastic Work". The counter cubbies are for my super tweeked version of the Daily 5 that I am going to try out this year. I have a close up picture with more detail down below.

Here is the "Reader's Reef" also known as our classroom library. I pulled back the blue waves until I can teach the kids how to behave in the library, but it looks so cute inside! My mom even hung up a beach ball from the ceiling!

 

 Here is my teacher desk space! I really like it :) I put my popcorn machine and bubblegum machine in the corner until I have the chance to tell the kids about them so they don't knock them over.

 The following pictures are just different angles of my classroom taken from my desk.

Now to get into the details, which I am super excited to show you! Here's something new I will be doing this year is having a turn in box where the kids need to highlight their name! Since they never seem to remember....ever!

 Here's another new thing I am going to try for whole group classroom management. Whenever I catch them doing something good, they will get a scoop of "Super Sand". When they fill up the "Sea how super we are" jar then they earn the popcorn party! Last year, my whole class classroom management was earning the pieces to Mr. or Mrs. Potato Head, but I came up with this idea and thought it would be a fun change. The containers are baby formula and crystal light!

Here is what is on the tables for the first day of school. They will have their name plate and a coloring page.

My dad made these super awesome PVP stands so I can hang whatever I please. I plan on using them to display examples and directions for students at centers, but I thought it would work perfectly for the first day of school as parents walk in. The little cards are pictures of a bus, bike, car, and school building. I have the parents grab the card of how their child will get home.

 I saw this next one on Pinterest! Cups that say "I am out of the room". The kids will grab one and place on their table spot so I know who is out of the room at the bathroom. I think it'll be a great way to quickly see who is out and how many are out of the room. I only like two to be out of the room at a time so if the kids see that both cups are on tables then they know they need to wait until someone gets back.

 Here are my technology drawers. My dad drilled holes in the back to run the charging cord through. Keeps our technology in a safe place :) Although....I know I know....the numbers are all out of order and it's driving me insane so I need to fix it!

 I love my portable word wall! My classroom isn't really built as a kindergarten friendly room and it always upset me that I couldn't fully utilize a word wall until NOW!! I plan on using our word wall as much as possible, because it'll be easy to move around and at the kids level.

 Here is my super tweeked Daily 5 centers board. I will have 6 centers going on at a time. Kids will go to one center a day and each center will have two choices that must be done, but they get to choose which tub they do first and last. Last year I spent so much time coming up with a ton of centers that I felt like I was always planning and prepping non stop. This year I had a revelation to have the same centers, but to tweek them a bit each week so that they are the same concept/skill, but learning it in a different way. For example, maybe at word work choice 1 tub would have "rainbow write your name" and choice tub 2 would have "spell your name with pipe cleaners". In between choice 1 and choice 2 we will gather on the carpet for some music and movement brain break. Oh and I am also going to combine "read to self" and "read to someone" and then also create a "mystery center" so I can squeeze in some science, social studies, projects, fine motor activities.

Here are some close ups of the center cubbies without any work in them yet though! But my writing cubbies have my spacemen.

 My reading cubbies have puppets to read to, reading fingers, bookmarks, and PVP phones to hear themselves read.

 And last here is my writer's workshop tub. I haven't done writer's workshop before so I am looking forward to what this will bring. I probably should've spread out the contents so you can see what's inside! But there is a writing office (which is a resource for writing), binder of themed vocabulary words, and their writing folder (inside has one side for "I'm finished" and one side for "I'm still working".

Whew....I am exhausted!!!