Hello Again!
Today I am excited to be linking up with Angie from Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans for their monthly linky Together We are Better. This month is the classroom reveal. I am several days behind, which unfortunately is normal for me but I am super excited! This will be the first time I have ever shared photos of my classroom.
My favorite color is blue and I love things that are bright. I also love the jungle so you will see a little of all three in my classroom. I changed my room a lot this year. I really love it and I hope you do. Just keep in mind that I am not amazingly creative like so many of you out their. I am a pretty simple girl.
This is my reading area, although a lot more than reading happens here. We also use this area for morning meeting, calendar time, and any stories I read. I made this area much larger over the summer. This is probably my favorite area in my room. I love when we are all gathered here for calendar or stories. I also love the addition of my bible wall. I work at a Christian school so we teach Bible lessons every day. I love to do special projects to go along with those stories and now I can display them as a reminder of those lessons for the kids.
This is my desk area. We call this "The Lion's Den." This is the only part of the room that is off limits. This is where I will prep projects, sort, plan etc. and I can sometimes get a little messy. I switched everything over to drawers and bins this year to take away some of the clutter on my back counter. I have a drawer for each subject and that is where all the upcoming activities are stored. The bins are labeled Monday through Friday and that is where the week's work goes. This way if I have a sub they can just pull work from that day's bin. I keep all my teaching books and teachers guides on the white book shelf and then the tan one that is off to the side.
This is the back of my classroom. I always post the schedule every day so my students know what they are doing and the order we will be completing each subject. In a few months I will add mini clocks next to each one so that they will be able to tell the time we would like to begin each subject or activity as well. We are also adding brag tags this year to our first grade classrooms. These are hung on the other closet door. Our cubbies hold a variety of items this year because our students switch between both first grade rooms for different subjects so we don't rely on our desks very much.
The bulletin board that you see in the bottom corner is our Thankful board. My students will be writing a Thankful Thought every week until the end of the school year. This will hopefully remind them of how truly blessed they are.
This is my teacher group area. Any time I meet with a group for math it is back here. As you can see I also use the back wall to display activities from science and social studies lessons. I keep all my math group materials in the four baskets on the counter. The baskets are underneath Little D the healthy dragon who teaches my little firsties the importance of eating healthy. It is a really awesome curriculum that I purchased through the state of Arizona. I have used it now for seven years.
I was able to create my own labels this year and I love them. You can see some on my math group bins, manipulatives, and supply drawers. I labeled everything I could label. I also store items in the crate seats. These crates hold all of my student flash card sets.
This is the other side of my classroom. I love that row of cabinets. It holds so much. I have one section for art supplies, one for science, one for math, and the left over cupboard space goes to kleenex boxes, ziploc bags, and social studies. I am still building my social studies materials. My mth and science supplies are a little out of control though, which makes sense because those are my favorite to teach. The cupboard doors will eventually display math, science, and social studies Key Words. We just introduced our first set of math words this week so they are still being used in the pocket chart.
The front table is where I keep our science intereactive notebooks, good work baskets for both classes and our I Can statements board. You can also see my math group baskets hanging off to the side. The I Can board is new this year. I am excited to start displaying these for my students to see.
Well that is my classroom. It is simple, bright, and perfect for me. Hope you enjoyed my first ever classroom reveal, I did!
Ashley
