Last Year

 I guess I went MIA last year for... the whole year, but I took pictures of my classroom, and I would like to share them now.

Here was my room at the VERY beginning of the year.  You can't really tell from this picture, but most of those desks are the double wides.  Then some of them are normal (on the left side).  I didn't even have enough desks for  the amount of kids that I would be having.  I had 29 desks, but was getting 32 kids.  Notice the small table up there?  That was my solution.

Here is my reading rug area (although I didn't have a rug over there until a few weeks into school year.)  From here you can see my easel, my stuffed monkey, Markle Sparkle, my library, my calendar, all about me board, white boards, erasers, phonics phones, Journeys instructional cards and a weird hundreds chart (I won't be using that again).  

My library and my Workshop Way philosophy signs (see my Workshop Way post).

Another look at my reading rug area.  Notice the large black couch cushion... great for this year's alternative seating!

Here's my word wall... I got the cute zoo themed alphabet sign from Teachers Notebook.

My 'days of school place value board'.  Got the little holders from the Dollar Tree and just stapled them into the wall!

My wonderful library!  (They don't all have labels yet)

I love this!  I took all of my teaching resource books and put them in a bunch of magazine holders from Ikea.  Then made little labels and put a strip of contact paper across the whole thing.  Only... now as I have had to move rooms this year, the thing does not move well as one giant piece.  I wish I would have just wrapped them individually with contact paper.  Oh well, live and let learn.

Workshop Way puzzles and Thinkers, as well as a puzzle and Thinker lost and found and a book hospital!

This thing is nifty for centers or little activities.  The red cup on top holds like 25 sticks for the "What to do when you are done" problem.  I tell them to "pick a stick" and each stick coincides with a bin.  They take it back to their seats and  complete the activity quietly.  The blue mailbox on top holds Risk Sheets, 5 Across pages, and other Workshop Way tasks.

I set this up later in the year for supplies.  On top you will see The Prince (our pencil sharpener under the blue bucket... it says "Shh!  The Prince is sleeping!) and little containers for spelling words and word wall words.

Finally, I got rid of all the double wide desks and got normal ones!  Not to mention the fact that I lost a lot of kids and ended up with 24!  I put them into groups of four and put the supplies in the middle.  The teams got to pick out the animal team name, and each team was awarded points for appropriate behavior.  Each week the winning team got a trophy to sit at their desks for a whole day and they got to do "window paints" on one of my giant windows.  Quite the crowd pleaser.

Anyway, that was my room last year.  This year it will be very different because there will be NO DESKS!!  I will be doing alternative seating!  Check out my other posts to see how things are progressing!

Math Fact Tubs

The secret: FROSTING!

When I was in college, a professor of mine gave me an amazing tip.  She said to save frosting tubs and use them to store little centers or work stations.  

Around Christmas time, I sent out a school-wide email informing the teachers that I am collecting frosting tubs, and to send any of them my way. It was perfect timing, as third grade was just finishing up their Gingerbread Houses! I ended up getting about ten of them in all.  

---I would suggest having people clean them out first, because I spent a good chunk of time scraping frosting, but I took what I could get from nine year olds on a sugar high!-- 

I have done many things throughout the year with these frosting tubs... I love them because you can easily give them removable labels with index cards, they are small enough to sit at students' desks, and they are easily stored.

ANYWAY, what I used one tub for each set of math facts.  One for adding zero, one for adding one, one for adding two, one for take away one, take away two, and I even made some more challenging ones for my higher students such as adding ten, making ten, and doubles. Sometimes I just have a whole center based on one puzzle, or I let them take a tub back to their seat when they are finished with their work.  They have really proven to help sharpen their mental math skills this year, and the kids really enjoy using them.

For each set, I took several index cards (probably 15-20) and put a problem on the left side, then I wrote the answer on the right side.  I waited to cut them up until after I laminated them all, to save time and energy cutting all of the individual pieces.  I used different colored markers to make each set, so I could easily tell which set a piece belonged to in case one got misplaced.  I am really happy with the way these turned out!

Update:  I made a TON of literacy and math puzzles for frosting tubs available here for download!

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?

Color Rings

These little gems are called Color Rings in my class.  They are leveled flashcards for advanced kindergarten.  My class started on an almond color ring that has all of the letters and color words.  In order to pass the almond ring and move on to the next, the student must name all letters and the corresponding sounds, as well as all of the color words.  They must be able to get through the whole ring with no mistakes in order to move on to the next. The rest of the rings cover a total of 240 sight words.  They keep the color ring at home and practice with their parents until he or she is confident that they will make no mistakes.  I will then test them on the particular ring. 


This is not a mandatory assignment, but It really gives them an advantage for first grade.  Plus, many Kinders jump at the opportunity to learn more sight words in a more structured way.

The color rings progress in this order:

1. Almond
2. Red
3. Orange
4. Yellow
5. Green
6. Blue
7. Purple
8. Brown
9. Pink

For a full list of the words, plus the templates used for the flashcards email me at mmbrgr1@gmail.com

I'll post a picture of all of the color rings together later.

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.