Classroom Is Ready!

I made it through our first week!  Nothing is better than meeting your new kinders and sharing with them their new room for the next 180 days.  As a teacher you spend a lot of time in your classroom, so for me, I need to have CHANGE.  It's a BIG job changing the decor in a classroom so this year I kept the same colors, sticking with BRIGHT, and I added more to my room.  I hope you like it!

Starting with my Meet The Teacher gift for my kiddos.  Thanks to Kim Adsit's Open House Unit, my kinders were welcomed with a bag of goodies!

 This is my dramatic play area.  It used to be called the Surf Shack but I changed my colors and added my black/white chevron rug.  My plan is to call this "Home, Sweet, Home" and take a photo of each student then frame it in BRIGHT colors for the wall.  Too cute!

The lighting on this pic is not too well but this is my Math and Engineering area.  This is where my kiddos explore building.  I have many different kinds of building materials in this area.  Under the window is our countdown for "How Many Days In School."  Here we are going to add a number to the 100th chart each day, add a link, fill in the Ten Frame, and build the number.  Looking forward to trying this!

 This is my Guided Reading Table which will be a little different this year since we are beginning Reader's Workshop.  To the left of my table is my NEW rolling Reader's Workshop cart.  I have mentor texts organized by letter, reading tools on the second pull-out shelf, and more reading supplies on the bottom.  My plan is to roll this cart around as I conference with students.

We have a school-wide set of rules that all teachers follow together.  It makes the message consistent and throughout each grade level.  RESPECT, RESPONSIBILITY, KIND, AND SAFE.  We give out blue awards that the students bring to the principal.  It is a positive system where the students are rewarded by having a chat with the principal about their positive behavior.

This is my calendar board.  I am planning on using the neon caddies as ones, tens, and hundredths and collecting straws.  Pretty simple calendar board but I like it.  Thinking of adding the sight words for the week.

This is my new idea for Student of the Week.  Instead this year we are doing Explorer of the Week!  When it is a child's week they will bring home a suitcase from our class.  Inside the suitcase is Zippy the Zebra who LOVES to travel and a travel scrapbook.  Each student needs to pick a county to travel to anywhere in the WORLD.  Each student will bring the suitcase back to school with things from that country and share with the class.  I have a special table for the items brought to school.  They also have to make a page in our class travel scrapbook.  We will keep track of our travels by stamping our passports and marking our class map!

This is my leveled library where students will shop for books for their book boxes.

Next to the leveled library is the student's book boxes.  This first week of school I will take a picture of each student and place it on their book box with their name.

For the first time EVER, I have focus walls for Language Arts, Math, and Science.  So excited how these came out.  Language Arts includes our Super Readers stamina chart, Common Core standards, Writer's Workshop goals, etc.

My math focus wall will have Common Core Standards, new vocabulary words and anchor charts that go along with the unit.

This is my Math Centers rotation board.  After Math Workshop we have Math Centers for 30 minutes.

This is my morning message board.  Each and every day I will write a message to my kiddos.  Each day of the week I try to practice skills in language arts, math, or science.

This is in my writing center.  Just love my new "Sharp" and "Dull" labels for my pencils.