My Past & Present Classrooms

This was my FIRST classroom that I was able to completely design from scratch! I started teaching halfway through the previous year, so I had inherited a classroom from the teacher who left. SO here is my first attempt at my own classroom!

Here is a view of half of the class, the day before kids entered the picture!

Since we do Daily 5, this is the Writing Center. The posterboard standing up on the table displayed different options for writing products (letter, list, postcard, recipe, etc). I brought that little table from home, and covered it in contact paper from our favorite place (Dollar Tree!). I was super excited to find that cloud paper for the Word Wall at a teacher store. Unfortunately it can't be reused, but it brightened up the room :) I also covered all the walls in white paper, because the real walls were far from pleasing to the eye :P

Here is my "About Me" board to give my classroom a little personal touch!

This of course was our Listening Center! Behind it you can see the Daily CAFE chart. I'd recommend reading the CAFE book in order to get an idea of how to use it during instruction! You can also see my ABC's at the top, without the "V" like a missing tooth...Oops... But I loved that ABC display because of the environmental labels that it included! I also had the kids come up with their own environmental brands periodically.

This little cube-like area was for Word Work! I loved having the big white board for kids to use. I had my school order those Black drawers for supplies. Luckily I work at a school where they are willing to purchase supplies for our classroom. (It's a Title 1 school). My grandma actually purchased the "All About {letter}" pocket chart hanging in this area! Thanks grandma :D You can find it at Lakeshore. Anndd the big stripey bulletin board (wrapping paper on cork board) with wooden clips was for the kids work. It turned out that putting the clips onto the wrapping paper wasn't the best idea, because it eventually started sagging.

My Class LIBRARY! Those bean bag chairs were bought my MOM from Walmart! Thanks mom :) That string of lights that I love was from Target! You can also see that I put chevron contact paper right onto the white paper used to cover my ugly wall! AND I put the contact paper on ALL of my queasy yellow cabinets -- it dulled down the shock of the color a little!

My awesome teacher-neighbor who retired gave me her cubbies storage bins, and all of her manipulatives!! Great, right? She was an inspiring teacher for her long career, and I was lucky enough to meet her! Lastly, the red pocket chart is from our Go Math curriculum. Things are going to be a LOT different this year, because I have moved out to the portables!! I am excited to restructure and get organized in the "trailer park" :)