A tour of my PreK Classroom

So if you're anything like me... You LOVE seeing pictures of other people's classrooms! Today, MNPS gave teachers a planning day. Because I finished my plans before break, that gave me all day to clean and rearrange my classroom. We dusted all the shelves with pledge (and it smelled amazing), moved the furniture around and swept underneath all the shelves (the floors never looked better!) and I organized our huge closet and my drawers. It looks fantastic now!

You'll notice my PreK room is not AS bright and colorful as my Kindergarten room. (This is not my choice. lol) We are "encouraged" to keep bright colors to a minimum and keep with neutral colors with some blues and greens. But my rainbow loving heart has an extremely hard time with this OBVI. 

So here's your tour....

My pathetic word wall to the left. It has housed my student's pictures and name's all year. (And nothing else. Definitely an area of improvement.) The library center and cozy corner. The cozy corner offers my students an area where they can go to calm down, be alone or read a book. I've made it a rule that only one student is allowed in there at a time all year, but thinking I may start letting 2 friends as long as they are reading.

Here's a view of the coolest hanging lamp ever. (All the classrooms in my building have them!) Below is our dramatic play center. We are in the middle of a music-making study, so my para is a creative genius and made a "Center Stage" with red curtains for the kids to perform in. This also houses our puppet theatre to the left. The bulletin board picture shows the kids different problem solving skills. My para is going to add a title to the board tomorrow while I'm at CPR training. I'm excited to have the board to refer to when the kids may need some help with solving a social problem.

Block area. We post pictures of different styles of buildings for the kids. I actually have one who LOVES trying to build each one! He'll come get me from whatever I aim doing to show me his structures! I love it!

A better view of the block shelf and some more building photographs.

Gotta have a little literacy and social studies in the block center!

The Discovery center. Thanks to my awesome work friend Dana for the stump stools. The gray tote to the left houses or class worms. (Yup... and the kids LOVE holding them. Well most of them anyways... lol)

A view of our toys & games center.

The back of our math center.

Other side of our math shelf.

Another view of our word wall and some fun charts we have done! (They LOVE the Chubby Snowman!)

Art center #duh

Nothing exciting in the sand table right now, except... sand. (Need to switch out some fun toys for Jan!)

The kids listened to music and we "felt" the music as we drew. 

The next few photos are some examples of tallying we did before Winter break! I was so amazed at how well the kids did on their own with this! They came up with their own question to ask their classmates. Then they walked around the room with a clipboard and crayon, asked their peers the questions and tallied their responses. I had them bring it to me when they were finished and I watched them count their tallies and I wrote the numbers down for them. Then I asked them which had more/fewer. 

I love this question!

He did a great job!

This one asked how old my para and I were, so we wrote down our age since we are neither 4 nor 5! 

Before winter break, we had some visitors come in and talk to the kids about their musical talents. Before the visitors came, the kids helped come up with some questions to ask them. Ya'll... these kids are AWESOME! I didn't prompt any of these questions! They came up with them all on their own! 

The visitors would share with us their talent and perform something for the class. Then we asked our visitor the questions and I wrote down their responses. The kids loved this! (And I just realized I forgot to take pics of the instruments the kids made below this chart! Well shoot! Maybe tomorrow! *wink *wink)

You'll notice there is no clip chart or behavior management system in my room. That's because we have an amazing Social-Emotional curriculum we use called "Second Step" and we also use CSEFEL. The reason why....? Because we are teaching the children problem solving skills and self-management skills. I thought I would hate this... but actually, I love it. The kids are responding very well and I've seen them put the new skills into place! Plus, now that I have the bulletin board in dramatic play center, I can refer to that when needed also! It's great! I also have the benefit of seeing all the parents when they drop their child off and when they pick them up!

Back to School Night, Organization & First Week of School!

Hey all! It's been a busy and fun week in my classroom! I've been coming home late and zonking out every night this week! I wanted to share a few things I did for our Back to School Night. 

My classroom ready for the kiddos and families.

My adorable hallway display. Got the bird templates and idea from one of my FAVORITES: Life in First Grade!

And I had this cute little tour made by Katie over at Little Warriors for the kids to get familiar to our room. It was a hit!

I found this ADORABLE freebie on Crazy for First Grade and had to use it! All the goodies listed were inside the bag and each kiddo got to take one home. They loved it!

Ever year, on first 1/2 day I go over a powerpoint presentation with the families and talk about the kindergarten/school expectatations. I gave the ppt a new look and LOVE how it turned out!

Last week I promised that I would post a few more organizational things I do in my classroom....

My bestie/next door neighbor at school had this great idea of using scrapbook paper to "pretty-up" my drawers! These help keep me organized and sit right next to my teacher station.

Updated the backgrounds for how I post my standards. (Frames are from the Dollar Tree)

My version of the teacher toolbox! I LOVE it! I made a smaller one for my office and made it pink. =)

And finally, here a few ADORABLE crafts we made during our first week of school! We did these during our small group/guided reading time since they need a lot of assistance. All of these crafts can be found in Deanna Jump's Literacy and Math Fun with Names unit.

Classroom Tour 2014-15

Hey ya'll! I'm so excited to be back! I have a few changes coming up next week, but until then I'm going to leave you with a fun post! A classroom tour!

In case you can't tell from the photos, I love all things colorful and polka-dotted! =) Some of my favorite classrooms that inspired my own are....

I know there are plenty more that I love... these are just the few that come to mind as I type this! =)

I snapped a few pictures before I left school yesterday so I could share them with you! I am LOVING my room this year. It's organized and I got rid of a lot of junk and materials I never used.  I will post a few more pictures later next week of some things I forgot that help keep me organized! (I don't know about you, but I LOVE seeing how other teachers set up their rooms and stay organized!) 

Anywho, here are some pictures!

When you first walk in my classroom

All the tables need are name tags, school supplies and the kids! (My mom sewed all the chair pockets- isn't she talented?! She even made a clear slot for the kids name-tags! I love them!)

Just a few of the awesome reading buddies I have that go along with books we read! (The rest are all on my dividing wall that you'll see pictured behind my small group table.)

The kids' computers: they get to go to computers twice a week! (Once during reading stations and another during math stations.)

Our word wall will house all the sight words after I have taught them. The best part is- it's magnetic! So the kids can go up and grab a word if they need help spelling it in their writing then put it back when they are done. They LOVE it and do really well after some practice. The pink tubs with zoo animals are the reading center tubs and the blue ones below them are morning or wake-up tubs for when they finish their morning journal work! (And see those ABC posters on the top... you can find those on my TPT store! I made them in polka-dot and chevron!)

I finished painting my rocking chair and side table! Don't they look great!? I think next summer I'm going to paint all the shelves in my room different colors: red, orange, teal, pink and purple! I can't wait! Anywho, behind my chair is where I post our "learning target" each day. (You can find the printables for FREE on my TPT store in polka dot and chevron! But I'm actually changing these ones from last year to new Daily Objective Charts I made that give me a little more space to write.) Then on the gray board with yellow trim, I have picture icons that remind the kids what order to complete the work in (write your name, write with a pencil, color, cut, and then glue! You can find them on First Grade Factory's blog! Just click the link.), our Letter of the DAY chart and our schedule. The green board is all our calendar activities we'll do and then the blue board is some more calendar activities and our ABC chart we sing from Teaching With Love and Laughter! The green tubs on the shelf hold all our math center tubs (see the ocean animals... that's how my kids will know what their table needs to grab each day!) Then a few baskets on top to hold things I'll need daily for them! (The vowel glue bottles at the top of my wall are from The Teacher Wife.)

I love the bumble bees! (Copied from Life in First Grade.)  I've got our writing portfolio and math journals stored to the left and the colorful baskets are where the kids will get to choose books they can read after I've taught them how to read them in small groups. Then our pencil stash and the "turn-in" basket! Underneath the counter, behind my beautiful curtains I made, are all our math stuff!

A view of my small group table... (I would put the kidney-bean table I'm requesting from donors choose if I get it funded and take out the big brown table!)

The kids pictures will go in the pocket chart for our reading station rotation chart! The ocean animals are for our math tubs.

These are word attack strategies I teach the kids to help them when they get stuck on a word. (These are on my TPT store. Also in polka dot or chevron.)

The top drawers I need to label. but it will hold papers that need filed away, stickers, scholastic readers and misc. things. The bottom are labeled with cute labels I made last year.

Where the kids can grab supplies when they need them! (With my permission of course- otherwise these would be empty after a week! lol)

ABC tubs! This is where my students can CHOOSE a tub to work on anything alphabet-related! This is a FAVORITE every year b/c they have a choice. The great part is, I can leave it out the majority of the year b/c they love them so much. I will change them out as I see kids getting bored with certain activities. (I need to fill a few more tubs in at the bottom! oops!)

The top of this cart holds the famous "glue sponges" that Kindergarten Smorgasboard thankfully posted about! I can't wait to try them out this year! So much better than glue bottles and glue sticks! The cans below are for "lost crayons". If a child finds a crayon on the floor, they can put it in the matching tub for their friend who may need it later! The buckets are just sitting on the bottom b/c I don't have a use for them right now. (the usually hold pointers, but I threw all my old ones away b/c they were all broken after 5 years. lol) Gotta make new ones!

My awesome friend and coworker, Katie, who teaches 1st grade just started a blog! Check it out: Living the First Grade Dream She gave me this awesome stand her hubby made (she had an extra that she didn't need) so I'm going to make it a station for my kids on the back side and use the front facing side during small group for sorting picture cards! The purple tub currently had bingo dabbers we use for fun activities and I'll eventually put flash cards and pointers in the other sections.

This cart holds all the materials I need daily for small groups! The tubs are from Dollar tree! Love it! The two silly looking tubs on top are fun games we play to learn our letters and sight words! The kids LOVE em! You can find the adorable crodile game on Growing Kinders blog! (just click the link)

I finally got my # 0-20 charts posted that I made this summer! I love how it turned out! I think I need to add a cute little header for them though! (They are also on my TPT store in polka dot or chevron!) And all my teacher-stuff I'll need is on the shelf. Can you spot my monthly binders in the middle top shelf? You can find the covers HERE and the spines HERE!)

A close-up of the posters I made! I'm pretty proud of them! Find them on my TPT store in polka dot or chevron!)

The big, blue pocket chart is where my kids work on sentence fluency and reading sight words. Above that is the color words poster as a reference (b/c they'll use color words a lot at the beginning of the year in this center!) Then on the closet doors I have a birthday chart, a poster for the kid's bear bucks they earn (positive reinforcement for great behavior) and the clip chart is for when someone is misbehaving. They'll have to move their clip down after a warning and every time after that if the misbehaving continues.---Although I know I won't have to use that much b/c it's gonna be a GREAT year! I have FREE behavior charts (that have more colors where the kids can move their clip up) on my TPT store in polka dot or chevron.

Our specials schedule!

I'll be back with more pictures next week and a few surprises!