Classroom Tour {2015-2016}

One of my favorite things I like to do is browse other teachers’ classrooms! In person, or online, it’s all the same to me! I just love to do it! I’m linking up with Ashley and Angie for #2getherwearebetter and with Blog Hoppin’ for a classroom reveal- Melonheadz style!

Last year I went with a woodland theme and this year I went with a kidlette theme. I’m loving our classroom and most importantly, the kids are loving our room!

Warning…I got a little camera happy 🙂

Let’s start with a view from the entry way. If you were to walk into my room, this is what you would see.

Let’s zoom to north wall and take a peek at my library.

I redid my bin labels to help my kids put their books back where they belong. I love these bookshelves so much! My bestie passed them on to me when she moved to a different school. I love to display books by our author of the month on the top ledge.

Link to bin labels HERE

This year I redid my author of the month wall. First of all I cut out my title using my Cricut. I then added a large poster from A Year of Many Firsts. The books I’m displaying on the wall, are the actual books! I just stuck some push pins into the wall and displayed the actual books we are reading. If you take a look to the side you see pigeon holding a book by our author of the month 🙂 I switch his book out each month. To learn more about how this works, click HERE.

Link to Author Poster HERE

I’ll zoom out again to view the entire library area.

This is one of my favorite new additions to our classroom! I went to Ikea and picked up two of these bookcases. I turned the long one on it’s side to create this reading bench! The pillows also came from Ikea. I then picked up these white buckets from The Dollar Tree and stuck some labels on them. My kids get so excited to read on the special bench!

Link to these labels HERE

Let’s talk some more about these posters! Everyone that walks into my room points them out right away. I wanted posters that I could refer to all the time and that would be large enough for my kids to see from any angle in the room. Mission accomplished! I added a title, some chevron accents created with my Cricut, and some flower pom pons and I was good to go!

Link to Posters HERE

If you look at the top of the last picture you will see my READ marquee letters. It only took driving around to 6 different Joann’s to find that letter A. They add so much to my library. The best thing about them is that they are battery powered so I don’t have to deal with any cords!

And this is what they look like when it’s dark.

Now a view from my desk to my east wall. Yes, I have tons of cabinetry! And yes, each and every cabinet is jam packed after teaching for nearly a decade. My mission this year is to give lots of it away so that I can actually take advantage of having so much storage. My husband is making a cameo appearance while he is supposedly “hiding from the camera” 🙂

We are not supposed to put anything on our cabinets, but I COULD not help myself and used them as my word wall.

Link to Word Wall Headers HERE

Here is the rest of the cabinet wall.

All the way to the left you will see my student mailboxes. I use these to store student work. Once a week I send home a week’s worth of work. So far I’m noticing that more parents are getting to see their child’s work this way. In the past I’ve seen that my kids have work from weeks ago in their backpacks! I was looking for a solution and this seems to have done the trick. I also put a folder at the bottom of each drawer to help me build an ongoing portfolio. Now whenever a last minute meetings pops up, I can pull the portfolio and have lots of student work for the meeting. These will also come in handy for parent conference. Next to the mailboxes you will find my paper trimmer, hold puncher, tape dispenser, and pencil sharpener. It’s my little command center.

Link to Mailbox Labels HERE

Next you will find more kidlettes 🙂 The small tower holds my commonly used items. The toolbox holds items that would typically be found in a desk and on the far right you see my weekly drawers. In the weekly drawers I like to store my copies for the week. Whenever I don’t have time to get to something, I place it in the sub bin so that I don’t have to make copies for a sub. Do you see my awesome lamps? I found them last year at Walmart.

Link to Melonheadz Labels HERE

Here you see the right side of the countertop. There is something so beautiful about seeing a whole row of book bins! I just wish they were black! My students use them during read to self time.

All the way at the end of the row of book bins is where I keep my subject drawer bin. In this bin I keep my copies that I make ahead of time and organize them by subject. That way I can copy a few weeks ahead of time and have a place to keep all those copies until I’m ready to move them to my current week’s bin.

Link to labels HERE

I’m not one to waste space, so I put up my classroom rules right by the door. It’s a great way to review the rules every day when we are getting in line and it’s located by my clip chart.

Link to rules HERE

From my desk looking forward.

From here you can see my whiteboard and more displays.

To the far right you can see my student display board. I got this chalkboard paper from Joann’s and hot glued some pink bows onto clothespins. The clothes pins were just clipped onto the paper. On the small board to the left is our Instagram photo display. I’m planning on putting my student’s pictures in the squares! What a creative idea from Ashley!

Link to Instagram Display HERE

Next to the student work display you will see our objectives board. We are required to always display our objectives. Last year I displayed them using scrapbook paper. After I saw the way that A Cupcake for the Teacher displayed my headers and Debbie Crocket’s posters, I decided to make the switch to rings. I put my week’s objectives on the rings and all I have to do is flip them throughout the week to find the day’s objectives. You can see a video of that below the next picture. Above my objectives you can see this beautiful alphabet by Ladybug’s Teacher Files! I love the brights on black!

A video posted by Learning in Wonderland (@learninginwonderland) on Aug 12, 2015 at 3:30pm PDT

Link to Alphabet HERE

Link to my editable Objectives Kit HERE

Link to Common Core Posters HERE

All the way to the left side of the wall is where I placed our clip chart. The title was created with my Cricut.

Link to clip chart HERE

A view from my desk to the entry way.

A view from the north wall to the entry way.

Another angle of my west wall. This is where my Smartboard is located. This amazing carpet was also given to me by my bestie. I picked up those little stars around the board from Target.

Looking over to the left of the Smartboard you can see the grammar wall. I am loving these banners by Amy Groesbeck. They add a little something to my bulletin boards!

Link to Banners HERE

Link to Grammar Wall HERE

On the other side of the Smartboard you can see our schedule and our math wall. The math practices still need a title, so please ignore that blank space above them 🙂