What A Week!

Hello everyone!

Well its been one heck of a week. We started school last Monday here in Las Vegas and it was a doozie. I forget how much repetition and hands on teaching is needed at the beginning of the year and boy was I exhausted at the end of the week. Thank goodness for Labor Day!

My new first graders are great! We always have a few that we need to whip into shape! HaHaHa that sounds horrible. This is why it is so important to have great procedures and classroom management. By the end of the week they seem to be getting the hang of the rules and the classroom procedures. I have so many sweethearts that are ready and eager to learn. I really love my class this year!

Well like I promised before I wanted to show you my finished classroom and here it is!

This is my student work board. Underneath I have all of their book boxes they use during Daily 5.

This is my job chart. I have added all the boats and have all the students names on stars. All those baskets on the shelf are for homework, money and notes, spelling lists and the one closes to the door is for classwork. I don't use the hooks for their backpacks instead I have the students put them on their chair and use this to hang their coats during winter and hang my classroom mascot bag and the lost tooth bag that they get to take home.

This is my reading strategies above my reading group table. I cannot remember where I got the cards but I know I got them from some fabulous blogger.

This is my calendar area and where my group rug is.

I have 3 wonderful windows in my classroom which provide wonderful light but I run out of wall space fast. So I decided to put my birthday beach on my wardrobe and the one of the left is where I post all of my Daily 5 charts. It seems to be working for now since the students can refer to them when we are at the rug.

This is my word wall and my math wall. We didn't have any words up when this was taken but now I put all of the students names and the first 5 words on our list. The table is our writing center.

This is the view of my room from the door. All the rooms in our school are the same size so I have a pretty good size room with lots of windows so I am truly blessed.

This was my welcome board which I was inspired from one of my favorite sites. You guessed it Pinterest. The students loved finding their names on the surfboards during Meet the Teacher.

Well friends this is my classroom I hope you enjoy and it sparks some creativity like many of your rooms have inspired me. I am now off to enjoy what's left of my Labor Day weekend.

Cindy

VIP Student

So as I was reading the blog post by What the Teacher Wants the other day about her VIP procedures. I got to thinking or actually remembered that I have to redo my VIP. You can check her posts and her wonderful downloads by clicking on the link. Last year my theme was more of an ocean theme so I had The Whale of the Week and that special child got the whole week to themselves. Each day they would do something different.

Monday: They would bring in their Autobiography and baby pictures. I would hang this on a bulletin board I created especially for this. We would read the autobiography and ooh and ahh at all the adorable baby pictures. I also asked the parents to write a special letter to their child on why they are so special and put it in an envelope for us to share on Friday.

Tuesday: The students would write a note to The Whale of the Week telling them why they are special. The Whale of the Week would write about being the VIP and what they think they are really good at.

Wednesday: The students would bring in a "Show and Tell" item. (I had to be very specific to tell my parents no animals because my word these people want to bring everything in.)

Thursday: The student would bring in their favorite book and we would share it with the class.

Friday: The student was presented with a certificate for being the student of the week and a little book of all the letters their classmates wrote. I would also read the letter from the parent. After all this is done the VIP for the week would reach in a bag and choose the next VIP for the week.

This is when I would return all the baby pictures except for one. The student would chose their favorite one and they would go on our baby wall. It looks so cute when it is all filled with the students pictures and I even put my own baby picture. Of course I am the first VIP since I want them to get to know me first and learn the routine. I also hang onto the autobiography paper and bind them together to make a great book for our classroom library. The students love reading it.

Well this year I am doing more of a Beach theme than an Ocean theme so I decided to change things up a little and instead of Whale of the Week, I am doing Surfer of the Week. Yeah I know I am very creative. HA! I also changed some of the things I do during the week because sometimes we wouldn't have enough time for the students to write a letter to the VIP so I decided to skip that this year but I wanted to let you know about it in case you are interested. I loved the idea that Rachelle had from What the Teacher Wants of sending home a classroom mascot and having the student write about their adventure. So I am adding the mascot this year and since I was an Ocean theme last year and I had a dolphin in my classroom already "Flippy the Dolphin" was created.

This is what the VIP wall looks like. In the frame goes the students picture that I took at the beginning of the year and in all that blank space goes all the pictures that the parents send in. Some students have more than others but I have never had a student not bring any in but if I did then I would have to put my own pictures of the student, since I am always snapping pictures. This clip art is all included in the download as well as the things for the binder for Flippy the Dolphin. I don't know if you could use it but at least it might give you ideas so click on the link below and let me know what you think.

Surfer of the Week

Ok seriously I have 13 days before I have to be at work, where did this summer go? Must find my inner peace. Ha!!!

Cindy

I'm back! Some polka dot sneak peeks!

Hi everyone, Angie here! It's been so long since I posted that I feel like I need to re-introduce myself! I can't believe how fast this summer has flown by. I've been so consumed with my two little guys at home these past few weeks and I just wasn't able to blog as much as I would like! I also found myself in a "creativity funk" for a few days, but I am glad to say that was just a phase because now I'm back! Huge thanks (and my apologies!) to Cindy for keeping this baby going!

I realized I hadn't posted any pictures of my classroom and although I've been going in to my room at least once a week, I didn't feel like I was getting anything done! With the help of a Starbucks coffee and my awesome friend Tracy, I can FINALLY say that my classroom is coming along nicely! Here are some sneak peeks into my room now. Obviously it's not done yet, but we're getting there. :-)

My Reading Spot... there are still a few things I need to put up here! (The posters underneath the title are from Teaching in Flip Flops' blog and they are Reading Genre posters!)

My Meeting Spot/Calendar Board!

My Word Wall

It's hard to see in this picture but I made clothespins with a little chalkboard on the front of them for the students to write their names on. This will be my "Spot-Tacular Work" board!

I had this little niche of a wall and couldn't decide on what to put on it, but my Reading Reminders worked perfectly here! It's right next to my Reading Table so it works great! The wall to the right will have my Reading Beanies on it!

My desk area. The blank blue boards will have all of my schedules/calendars/memos on them!

That's it for now...I'm going back in this week to hopefully finish more of it. I've learned that I'm more productive when I don't have my little guys in there with me, so that's the plan! Stay tuned for more updates!