!st Weeks of School

We are off to a great start in kindergarten.  I always like to begin the school year making our surfers.  Each kiddo gets a T-shirt of their choice.  They decorate their shirt any way they like and then I take a pic of them in our surf shack.  My kiddos love coming to school and seeing their cool picture!

Another way to start off the school year is reading a favorite book of mine, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.  We read the book and made these darling Chicka Chicka Boom Boom trees.  This lesson is from Deanna Jump's Back To School literacy unit.

Classroom Tour (It's Finally Done!)

It's finally here!  First week of school, classroom all done ready to go, and time to share with all of you my new classroom for the year.  I'm excited because it's cozy, inviting, and a place that my kiddos will want to learn in.  Here's a peek:

I worked all summer on creating my new classroom library.  I purchased these great polka dot bins from Target that fit all sizes of books.  Each bin fits any size of book easily and it's easy for my kiddos to put the books away where they belong.  Each bin is labeled by category and on the back of each book is a letter of the alphabet so students can remember where they go back.  
I also include the kiddos book boxes in my classroom library.  When we do Daily 5 the kiddos come to the classroom library to read their book boxes.  It works like magic.

The Surf Shack is probably the favorite spot to go to.  Here my kiddos do their dramatic play and I use word charts so they can play restaurant or house with the charts to take orders like a "real restaurant."

We call this area the Math Zone.  I decided to place my calendar and all my Math manipulatives in the same area.  My kiddos know where everything belongs and they have easy access to any math material they need.  I love my new calendar board too!  So easy to use!

Next to my Calendar board I have my Poetry Center and my Write The Room center.  Here my kiddos have access to their poetry journals, highlighters, write the room worksheets, and cute little glasses they wear to write the room.  So fun!

Here is my Daily 5 rotation board.  New to my classroom this year and I am so excited to start Daily 5 in my classroom.  Each kiddo has their name on a polka dot name tag that we rotate each day for Daily 5.

My Math Center rotation chart is ready to go.  My kiddos will rotate daily to an independent math center a day.  Meet the teacher is part of the rotation.  Here I will meet and assess my students daily in guided math.  Groups are flexible and constantly changing according to learning levels.

We have a surfing theme in our classroom.  For Free Choice time we like to call it "Surfing."  My kiddos are accountable for their choices and they choose an area to go to for this time.  Their choices are the Magnetic Center, Building Center, Tech Zone, Surf Shack, Puzzles, Computers, and Tower Power Center.  Tower Power is a favorite with my kiddos because they take recyclable materials and build towers with Cool colored tape.

Here is the Tech Zone.  My 5 IPads are ready to go in these darling covers and I have headphones ready for each kiddo to take along with them.  

Our Writing Center is another area that my kiddos LOVE to visit.  The goal here is to provide my students with all the materials like markers, erasers, stickers, envelopes, hole punchers, stencils, word wall and let them just write.  I have a real mailbox next to my desk where students mail letters to one another.  It's so sweet!

My classroom friends are ready to go home with my kiddos.  Each friend has a matching book that goes home in these darling bags.  Perfect size for my kiddos to carry to and fro to school.  I collect these so now I have a wonderful collection to share with my students.

I saved the BEST for last.  MY DESK!  This summer I found a family in my area that was giving this desk away and I knew it was simply perfect for kindergarten.  How sweet are the colors!  I know its pretty girlie but I LOVE sitting at it each day.  My kiddos sit right next to me so I am close by ready to jump in when I need to.  Behind my desk I have this wonderful cabinet that stores all my kiddos journals, that famous mailbox that I just told you about, and my crates filled with student assessment data.  It's so cozy!

So I hope you like my new classroom!  Happy to share!