Classroom Tour

Whew.  The room is finally done!  Well, I suppose you're never really done, but it's close enough that I'm not going back in to school until our professional day on Tuesday.  I still have a few things to label for the students and I'm sure I missed a few things that I won't realize until the students arrive, but I'm feeling pretty comfortable with the room for now.  So here are a few photos of the room setup:

 

View of the classroom as you walk in the door by my desk.  The doors to the other 3rd grade classroom (with the F and E on them) are open.

 Starting to the right of the top photo and working counter clockwise around the room... the view of my desk and the CAFE board.

Computer table and a bulletin board which will be used to display student writing.  Right behind this center is an island of student cubbies which also serves as a divider between the computers and the classroom library area.

 Classroom library... I had a hard time deciding how to organize books.  It was much easier working by theme in Kindergarten!  The small baskets are all series books, large tubs are picture books (fiction and non-fiction) and reference books.  The middle shelf on the left favorite authors, and the middle shelf on the right is random chapter books alphabetically by author.  You can just see to the right of the shelves the two balance disks which children can use on the floor or at their seats, and there is also one of those sitting pillows.

 Still moving counter clockwise, there is a student table on the back wall, and then my kidney table area.  There are two student swivel chairs, and two balance balls which the kids can pull over.  I have them sitting on upside down frisbees so they don't roll away!  I put felt on the frisbees so they wouldn't scratch up the floors.

 This wall is all of the student supplies.  Mostly math supplies in the two rolling carts, my word work bin, bins of math games in folders to go with the Everyday Math program etc.  I love having everything labeled so that the kids know where it goes!  The two bulletin boards here will be for "Wonderous Words" and something else that we are working on in science or social studies.

 And, the Boggle Board!  I stapled magnets to the bulletin board and then put magnets on all of the letters.  I used the business card magnets since they are flat.  Those rolls of magnets drive me crazy when they curl up!  The little tub on the bottom is a thin plastic container I found at Target last spring.  It is flimsy enough that I could staple it to the board, but sturdy enough to hold all of the letters.  Perfect!

 Just to the left of the Boggle Board is my common core "I Can" posters.  I will put the standards we are working on to the front.

 This is a shot from the kidney table looking towards the front of the room.  There is a second classroom door next to the I Can posters.

 

Next is the classroom jobs and attendance chart.  Students put their daily folders and agendas in the basket each morning.

 

 The front wall and rug area.  My crates sort of blend in since they are so dark in the picture, but I really like the way they turned out!

 And a close up of my little owls.  I love them!  I can clip in new table names on the bottoms to match something we are doing in class.  If we are studying synonyms, I might choose 4 synonyms for the word great to name the tables (awesome table, super table etc.)  When we study explorers or countries, I might change them to reflect those topics.

 I love this storage "cube".  Each side is a different material... whiteboard, chalkboard, felt board and cork board.  The magnetic side faces the door and has magnets for the kids to sign out if they are leaving the room.  This side is my "Ambitious Aces" information (based on the Mastery Club that is making the rounds online).

And, that's the end.  I hope you enjoyed the tour!

CAFE Board

I put together a set of CAFE headers, with all of the strategies for my new classroom, which I have available on TpT. I've included the CAFE letters, the headers with their descriptions, and all of the strategies, some of which can be seen in the image below. Also included in the file, but not shown in the picture, are blank sheets where students can put their sticky notes to show which strategy they're working on. I was planning to use them, but I am doing daily five with the other third-grade teacher, and we are having all the students put their sticky notes on the board in her room. The signs that you can see on the bulletin board are available in my daily five download.

Daily 5 - Center Management

I needed a matching sign for my Daily 5 centers for a 6th choice - Work With Teacher, and of course I couldn't find anything... so, what was left to do but create my own new set!  So, here it is... my Daily 5 Center Management packet.  6 posters, small cards for students to keep track of their centers (see photo below), teacher check in sheets, and a sheet for conference an observation notes.  You can download the Daily 5 Center Management packet on my Teachers Notebook store.

Common Core "I Can" Posters

I finally got the entire set of my common core "I can" posters printed, put into plastic sleeves and hung on the wall.  I will be referencing them for the students as we cover the standards, and this way I can put what we are working on for each subject/strand in the front.  I'm not sure I like the way they hang at an angle (or the fact that my hooks aren't quite even), but there is too much left to do before the start of the year to go back and fix it now.  If you are looking for a set of I can posters, I have both the ELA standards and Math standards for sale on my TpT site.  The ELA standards include the New York state recommended additions, but if you don't need them you can take them out.

 

Here are a few sample pages from the posters, including the title page, the key to the icons assigned to the different strands, and samples of the posters.

Owls

Found the idea for these owls on Pinterest (where else?) so I made one for each table.  I found the paper lanterns at the Christmas Tree Shop for 2/$1.00, and they had colors that matched with my theme, so that was the perfect price.  A little scrapbooking paper for the wings, some construction paper for the rest of the details, a little glue, and voila! I put a small clothespin hanging from each one so that I can label the tables and change the labels.  I might start the year with numbers, but I'd like to name the tables something like "Fantastic", "Super", "Terrific", etc.  Might be a good time to do that when we talk about synonyms and using more interesting words in our writing! 

 

I'm so glad I got the entire number line and all of the owls hung today.  Hopefully I won't need to drag the ladder out again!

Daily 5 - Word Work

In preparation for the new year, I wanted to get my Word Work centers all set.  When I did work work in Kindergarten, I felt like I was in a never ending race to find new centers for the kids to keep up with the new concepts that were being introduced, and by the end of the year, my word work shelf was an unorganized mess with way too many choices!  So, I wanted to keep it simple this year, using a set of centers that could work all year long, allowing kids to practice their own individual list of words.  But even that might get a little too boring, so I threw in a few extras that students could work through during the year or that would be based on vocabulary from other units being studied.



After scouring the internet and looking back at the centers I had done in Kindergarten, this is the list I came up with (there are other centers that I was thinking of including, but we also give word work options for homework, so centers such as rainbow writing are ideal for that purpose, and are not included in the centers used in class):

Individual - using spelling list
-Whiteboards
-Stamping Words
-Word Worth
-Place Value Words
-Scrabble Spelling
-Type It
-Words in Words

Partner - using spelling list
-Sign Language
-Secret Codes

Individual - no list needed
-Boggle
-Shake It Up
-Cup Stacking
-Mystery Words

Partner - no list needed
-Pyramid Pile Up

I ordered a set of replacement Scrabble tiles from the Hasbro website, which was $6.50, and I am getting a few old keyboards from old computers at school.  I already have whiteboards and letter stamps, so the only other thing I will need to buy is plastic disposable cups for the cup stacking center.


I put the entire set of Word Work Centers, which includes all of the printables, recording sheets, instructions and reference sheets on my TpT site!

 

Word Work Cover and Secret Codes recording sheet

 Word Worth recording sheet and Place Value Words reference chart

 Boggle letter tiles to hang on wall and Mystery Words to be cut up and placed in envelopes

Mystery Words recording sheet

Common Core Posters - Math

I finally finished the Common Core "I Can" posters for Math.  There are no recommended additions in math for New York, but these match the ELA set that I created, which does include the NY state recommended additions.  You can find them on my TpT store.

Crate Seating

So I had seen the cute crate seating that others were posting on Pinterest, and wanted to make some for my classroom.  Lucky for me, my friend who teaches second grade wanted to make them too, so we were off on a hunt for the cheapest, yet most durable supplies we could find.  Here is what we used:

Crates - I had a bunch of milk crates at school which I was planning to use, but unfortunately they were actual milk crates and didn't have the lip inside for the seat to sit on.  So, we picked  up crates at Target for $3.49 each when the back to school stuff came out.  Sadly, I went back a week or two later and saw them on sale... but I'm going to just try to forget about that part.

Plywood - We are lucky to have a really great maintenance guy where we work, and he agreed to use leftover scraps of wood he had at school and to cut the plywood seats for us once we bought the crates!  He even cut little angled corners so there would be room for the fabric in the corners.  Did I mention how lucky we are to have him around?

Fabric - We went back and forth on what to use to cover the seats.  Shower curtains would be easy to clean off and seemed better for those unfortunate lice outbreaks that happen, but they didn't seem very durable.  Regular fabric seemed too thin.  We thought that outdoor canvas type fabric would be ideal, but it was $20/yd.  Lucky for us, JoAnn fabric ran a sale where it was 60% off, and I had a coupon for an extra 25% off.  Seemed like a good enough deal for us.

Foam - Knowing how expensive those foam sheets can be, we opted to go with a mattress pad, which we picked up at Walmart for about $11.  It was enough to make 7 crates (3 for her and 4 for me) stacking them two high for extra padding, with some left over.

Ribbon - to create the pull tab
Staple gun and staples

We doubled the foam on top of the fabric and stacked the plywood on top, then stapled it all down, being careful to tuck the corners in as much as possible.  After it was all stapled, we tacked on the ribbon loop.

Here are some pictures of the finished products for the Second Grade room.  We still have 4 more crates to finish for Third Grade!

Common Core Posters - ELA

Originally, I was just going to buy a set of the I Can posters from Teachers Pay Teachers, but then I realized that I wanted something that had the New York recommended additions included... and I couldn't find anything.  So, I set off to create my own set of posters.  Here is the first set for the ELA standards.  The Math set is yet to come!  You can find this set of posters in my Teachers Pay Teachers store, on sale to coincide with the TpT sitewide sale