The room

OH WOW.  Hello!

Needless to say I've been a busy bee since August.  And I'm not the best at keeping up with blogs.  But here I am at last to post pictures of my room.

It all started because my room is so small, remember?  Well, I couldn't possibly fit 20 desks in there and keep myself sane.  (I hate the visual "noise" of all those metal legs, not to mention a bazillion things to trip over and maneuver around all day).  So I began with a simple idea of three tables.  Two at normal first grade height, and one with the legs taken off.

Here they are. Not too beautiful yet, but I like the different levels.  Adds some dimension.

Next I added our big rainbow table and our bucket chairs. (Don't mind the mess!)

I got five heavy duty buckets from the Home Depot.  It actually worked out perfectly, because all of the manipulatives for our math program fit in them.  Which is amazing, because I literally don't have room for them anywhere else... :)



Next I made my library.  Now I consider this to by a real work of art.  Since I am so cramped for space, I needed to condense my library into the smallest space possible.  I ended up making it like this with two "isles" for easy and efficient book shopping.

I use the Journeys Leveled Readers on top (they go from A to L in my room), then everything underneath it is categories of interest.  To see how I categorized my books, see my library post.

After that, it was really just about adding the actual seating.  I got my exercise balls for one of the big tables, regular chairs for the other one, then for the little table I filled a body pillow with a BUNCH of bubble wrap.  

And since you are wondering, no, the bubble wrap does not pop when they sit on it.... but it does make noise when they move around on it.  They seem to like the noise, and it doesn't drive me crazy. Win-win!

Alternative Seating

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I got the OK from my principal to scrap my desk and chairs and use alternative seating.  I have been exploring the idea of it on the internet, and people are generally saying one of two things.  There is the first group (primarily made up of veteran teachers) that think it is crazy to ditch the desks for this new age practice, and a second group of teachers who have tried it, loved it, and have never even thought about going back to it.  Seriously, I have not even found a person who has tried it and hated it.  Sure, it is going to be hard to have to teach them to be able to do... everything... from literally anywhere in the classroom, and I'm sure that it will take a lot of time to teach the DOs and DON'Ts at the beginning of the year, but I am doing Daily 5!  A part of Daily 5 is teaching them how to be extremely independent and giving them a choice on what to do and where to sit (or lie, or stand, or crouch).

I have been doing a lot of research and I have many things that I want to try next year.  Unfortunately, the classroom that I am moving into is a lot smaller than the one that I am used to.  In fact, it is small by anyone's standards.  I was given the choice, and I actually chose this room though.

The room that I oh-so-professionally hi-lighted in yellow is my new room.  The room above it was my old room.  Needless to say, I am in a closet.  The problem is, is that when my school was being built, they never intended on having more than one teacher per grade level.  Well the numbers were higher than expected last year and they hired a couple of teachers to teach some combo classes.  This year, apparently the numbers have increased again because there will be TWO TEACHERS PER GRADE LEVELS!! I could not be more excited!!  It will be so awesome to bounce ideas off of someone that is teaching the same standards and going through the same grade level behavior drama!  As of now, they have not hired anyone to be my other half... but I did get an email telling me that they have given someone a second interview and they are considering hiring her!  I hope we get along!

Anywho, here is a list of the things that I'll be using as alternative seating:

X      exercise balls

X      couch cushions

X      t-shirt pillows (DIY)

X     bean bag chairs (DIY)

X     bucket seats (DIY)

X      crate seats (DIY)

X     PCV camp chairs (DIY)

X     Rugs, blankets, pillows, the usual...

These links will take you to the Pinterest pins that I got my inspiration from, but I haven't taken my own pics yet.  They will come soon!  Let me know what you think of my ideas!

Daily 5

Alright, so I am ECSTATIC to announce that in the beginning of June I got to attend a Daily 5 conference from The 2 Sisters in Charlotte, NC! 

IT

WAS

AMAZING!

My principal sent my two favorite teachers and me for two days!  We got to go to Daily 5 AND Cafe!  It was seriously so great!  I learned a TON, and it really reminded me why I wanted to be a teacher in the first place!  The Sisters were so inspiring and down to earth! I could go on and on!  Let's just say that the conference was well worth it!

I went into the conference with very limited knowledge on Daily 5 and Cafe.  I attempted to bust out the first book The Daily 5 on the plane to NC.  I didn't get very far, however, and decided that I would probably learn just as much at the conference as I would have reading the book... And learn much I did.  And we even got two little workbooks during the conference that held all the most recent theories and practices that The Sisters had to offer.

Oh, and did I mention?  They gave out a bunch of freebees too!  My favorite little gift was a set of wind chimes!  I will hang them up from the ceiling and use them to signal when to regroup to discuss and reflect between dailies.  This was the first gift we got, and people went nuts!  I swear, it felt like an episode of Oprah's Favorite Things!

Well I am so inspired by what I learned so I am giddy to get into my new classroom and start setting up.  A lot more to come soon!

Upcoming Daily 5 Conferences

Objectives

I don't know how it is everywhere else, but many public schools in Arizona require you to write your "kid friendly" objectives on the board.

I added a little color to mine, even though the papers got caught in the laminator, so now they are a little wrinkled... (UGH the plastic that was going in fused with the plastic coming out, and it was a huge jumbled mess!)  But even so, I think its alright for this year.  

I especially like my SWBAT sign.  I used a sentence strip and mounted it on several colorful index cards.  Its awful psychedelic, don't you think?

My Classroom

Classroom pictures:

I figure that I'll just post a couple pictures of my classroom and the things that I have made this year.  It is a work in progress as this is my first year as a teacher.  Keep in mind, that I made (or bought!!!) practically everything that was used in my classroom this year.  I did what I could with what I had, and some things ended up pretty cool! 

Here is a center that I made for beginning sounds.  It is a magnetic picture sort that I made out of the front side of my desk.