My Classroom Tour!

Phew! I made it through the first week of school! I am now as ready as I'll ever be to reveal my classroom for the 2014-2015 school year!

 

This is my reading focus wall. I don't have that many bulletin boards, so I used contact paper to create a board behind my guided reading table. I then hot glued clothes pins to hold up my laminated paper. I put Velcro up as well so that I could change out the labels if I ever wanted to. The pocket chart in the center is for my vocab words for each group!

This is my FAVORITE spot in my room. This is my reading corner. I haven't finished the bulletin board yet. I got the purple rug from Wal-Mart for about $15. The cute chevron table was $10 from Ross and the rest of the furniture is old. I covered up my wooden doors with contact paper to create a super cute and bright Word Wall. The shelf on the right has all of my book baskets that are sorted by genre.

It's kind of hard to see, but the banner that I made says "Math is a Hoot!" Looking at it now, I'd like to have lighter paper so that the letters could be more visible. I do not have the time or energy to fix it at the moment :) My bulletin board paper is actually wrapping paper that I bought from the dollar section at Target.

I found this awesome idea on Pinterest! Like I said previously, I don't have much bulletin board space, so I created this one with contact paper. I hot glued clothes pins to the wall so that I can swap out student work. This also shows my mailbox system which is a hot mess with all of the first day packet stuff :)

Try dressing up your door or bulletin boards with mix/match borders! I love this!

My job board is on a door that leads to the outside. I covered it with contact paper and it looks so much better. I love this!

I'm going to end my classroom tour with my favorite desk skirt that I made a couple years ago. This was super easy and didn't take much time at all. If you like that big chunky letter on my desk, they are 50% off at Michael's Arts and Crafts! :)

 

I'll post more classroom pictures very soon! :) Leave a link to your blog so I can check out your classroom!

FREEBIE and TPT Sale

It's that time to start getting our classrooms ready for school, so that means a Teachers Pay Teachers SALE! My entire store will be 20 % off August 4-5. Click the image below or click here to get to it! I've also got a new FREEBIE that you can download here! My next post will be all about the first week of school and fun activities to do in your classroom so stay tuned! Have a great weekend!!!

 

Instagram Door

Happy Tuesday everyone! I have finally finished my spring door. This is the LAST door for the school year. It was a last minute decision. I didn't want to do any ordinary "spring cliché" phrase or flowers blooming. What am I obsessed with? Instagram! So that's what I decided to do. Not only do I love it, the kids are crazy about it and think it's so cool! They came up with their own fake "username" and a spring goal with a few hashtags! This was a super easy door and took no time at all. The tedious part was just cutting the brown and white rectangles. It could be a little neater and straighter...but hey, sometimes there's just no time for that :)

 

 

 

 

 Thanks for stopping by! Send me links to your spring bulletin boards or door ideas!

 

Classroom Decor Tip

Hello everyone and happy Monday! I have been BEYOND busy and wish I could blog more often. Graduate school, evaluations, report cards, etc. I know you all get it :) Lets get to the post...
Before I knew about this wonderful tip, I used plain, boring bulletin board paper to create my displays. Thanks to a wonderful friend (credit: Jessica Farrell, Kindergarten teacher), I now use wrapping paper for ALL of my bulletin board displays. Not only is this super easy, it's cute and unique. It is very unlikely that you and another teacher will have the same background. I am not a very "matchy, matchy" person. I like things to coordinate, in other words. I know that many are probably thinking that it's expensive and why waste money on wrapping paper when you can get free bulletin board paper from school. Here's my philosophy:

1. Wrapping paper is not expensive...look for the clearance paper!
2. I can be reused...I have had the same wrapping paper up for two years...I just change the border.
3. It doesn't fade like bulletin board paper does.
4. It's much cuter.

Here are some examples of my bulletin board displays. Don't mind the fact that they are pretty plain (I had to take a lot down for MSA testing and I haven't put everything back up). If you're interesting in seeing any other displays from teachers who use wrapping paper as their bulletin board backgrounds, please contact me!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by! Happy blogging! :)

Black History Bulletin Board

Happy Monday everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. This month, as I've stated in previous posts, my class and I have been learning about many figures from Black History. I have three guided reading groups, so I used Reading A-Z to find books to use. I had my below grade level group read "Good for Thurgood," my on grade level group read "Martin Luther King, Jr." and my above grade level group read "Harriet Tubman." After reading about these figures, each group created a character trait poster using text evidence to support the character traits that they chose. I displayed this in the hallway so other classes could see who we were learning about and what kind of people they were. I love it! What are you doing in your classroom for Black History Month?

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

I don't know about you all, but the east coast got a nice chunk of snow fall! It's been a FIVE day weekend! Super exciting! Only downfall is, is that we have a LOT of catching up to do in school. My reading data was due at the end of this week. Looks like it's not going to be finished in time! What did you do on your few days off if you had some?

 

On another note, I wanted to share a great activity that accompanies Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. This wonderful book is in our third grade curriculum, so it's most likely in many other third grade curriculums. Sadako and the Thousdand Paper Cranes is about a young girl struggling with Leukemia caused by an atom bomb that dropped in Hiroshima, Japan. Sadako attempts to fold 1,000 paper cranes, in hopes that she would get healthy again. After we read this book, I had each of my students write any wish that they had for themselves, the community, their family, etc. This activity got my students thinking about others and also how lucky they were. Some wished for a cleaner environment, world peace, less violence, and for family and friends to be healthy. I posted this bulletin word, titled "I wish..." outside of our classroom. I included the article on the Hiroshima Peace Park in the middle of the board so that students and teachers could read about Sadako and understand why our wishes were so sentimental. If you haven't read this book, you've got to! It's a great read for the intermediate grade levels. If you have read this in your class, are there any other activities that you recommend?

 

 

 

 

Some pictures from my snow day :)

 

Thanks for stopping by! Stay warm :)