Classroom Tour 2015

I am finally ready to show off my new first grade classroom!

 

If you've read my blog lately, I'm sure you've seen little bits and pieces.  But I thought I'd go ahead and show a complete walk through today.

 

So here it is!

My 2015 first grade classroom.

 

I have so much space outside my door to hang student work!

This is also where my students hang their backpacks.

The room next door is only occupied a few hours a week by our ESL teacher.  I got tired of looking at an empty bulletin board, so I had our first grade assistant make something that would fit in with our super hero theme.

The bulletin board outside my classroom is where I hang up tests that earned a 100!

Yes, it's October.

I love this wreath I bought from Walmart!

Right inside out door I have our transportation chart.

Another transportation chart, along with some important memos.

I love changing out my subway art each month!

 

You can check it out here.

This little basket is where I keep my absentee forms.  We have to turn in a paper copy as well as an electronic copy. 

 

I also place anything that needs to go to the office in the basket each morning, along with my absentee, so that our assistant Mrs. Paula can take care of it for me.  It's also where she puts my teacher mail when she checks my mailbox each morning. 

 

Love her!

I brought my centers from kindergarten and we get them out on Fun Friday.

My schedule chart!

 

I was used to having mostly magnetic boards in my kindergarten classroom.  So my schedule cards all had magnets on the back.  My first grade classroom has zero magnet boards, so I bought an oil pan from Walmart, thanks for the idea Dee, covered it with black material, and it works as a little holder for our schedule cards.

 

You can check out my schedule cards here.

The clear tub is our paper basket where kids turn in their work.  I like to keep my markers in the basket so that I can just grab the whole tub and take it wherever I need to in order to grade papers.

 

The blue basket is for work that is not completed and the green basket underneath is for when we are working on a project that lasts a few days.

Our supplies station!

 

I love this little area.

 

On the top we have extra crayons, pencils, and erasers.

 

If a student needs a specific color, they can just go grab a new one.

 

Same with pencils.  If their pencil is broken or needs sharpened, they place it in the middle drawer and get a new pencil out of the top drawer.  I also keep my pencil sharpener handy in case I need to sharpen a few pencils in a hurry.

 

On the shelves are other supplies: glue sticks, new pencils, glue daubers, highlighters, markers, and bingo daubers.

 

The towers on either side of our supplies shelf are our reading and math workstation activities.

Our word wall in action.

 

I used glitter ribbon from Hobby Lobby and measured each piece according to how many words I would eventually need to fit on it.

 

Some of our popcorn words are covered up because we had just taken a spelling test.

Last year I got these really fun stick-on pumpkin decorations from Walmart.  I used my spider set last year, so this year I went with the kitty cat.

 

The little shelving unit behind the Boo sign is a drying rack.

Student cubbies.

 

Kind of a mess.

 

This will probably be what I work on next, after my formal observation.

More student cubbies and some extra copy paper.

This shelf ended up being a catch-all for things I didn't know where else to put.

 

It has activities for my word work and math facts workstations, in the light blue and green baskets at the top.  Crayons in the middle in case write site needs crayons.  My magnetic letters are underneath the crayons.

 

The middle shelf is where kids can put Box Tops, Pull Tabs, and Campbell's Soup Labels.

 

And the bottom shelf has our reading workbooks and clipboards.

 

Please excuse the dusty fan in the corner, it needs to be taken home with me.

Shape signs, check them out here.

Our lovely back door that needs some touch-up paint.

Sink area and Boo Boo Box.

Write Site.

 

I keep a little tray with a glue tub, scissors, a tidy tub, and smelly pencils on the table.  When the kids go to our writing workstation, they get to use my Smencils.

BEE Book baskets and our homework basket.

Student work display.

Number posters, check them out here.

My daily work drawers, teacher toolbox, and hole puncher.

 

I file papers into my daily work drawers every Thursday or Friday, for the next week.  I love that at the end of each day I can just pull out the drawer for the next day and I'm all ready to go.

Love this pencil sign from ETSY.

My little nook.

I don't know what I'd do without my Erin Condren Teacher Planner.

 

And I made the little Weekly To-Do List a few weeks ago and I love it.  I check off things I do each day to get ready for the next week.  Then I wipe it off with a magic eraser and start again the next Monday.

Yes, my desk usually looks like this.  I didn't clean it up for photos. 

 

I can't stand clutter on my desk and if it does get cluttered, I can't leave school until its back to normal.

When our assistant copies work for the next week, I store it in these drawers until I'm ready to file the work into my daily drawers.

Write Site tools and our Chrome Books.

My math manipulatives!

 

I used to keep readers in these drawers, but at the end of last year I changed it out to hold my math manipulatives.  I love that my kids know where things are and can get them out when they need them.  No more digging in a cubby to find what I need.

Displaying our lesson plans is a requirement...but the only time I look at them is when I'm flipping to the next page to put in next week's plans.

 

Having everything ready to go in my daily work drawers really helps me stay on track so that I don't have to keep checking my lesson plans to see what's next.

Our little calendar area.

 

I downsized a lot from our kindergarten classroom.

I am absolutely in love with these standards cards from Bright Concepts 4 Teachers.  One side has the standard and the other side has an I Can statement in kid friendly language.  You check them out here.  Such a great purchase if you're required to display daily standards.

Our Promethean board with more kindergarten centers that we pull out on Fridays.

I love this clock from Amazon!

 

The bright lights make the picture not so great.  But I love the bright neon colors and it doesn't make a ticking sound.

Some of our dvds and a cd player that I haven't used since teaching kindergarten last year.

 

I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it.

My little area where I can display things on our board.  I love this project because I show exactly how to cut and glue something while the kids watch the board.

 

This was a lifesaver when I was teaching my kids how to cut and glue the pieces in their interactive journals.

Our little anchor chart board.

 

I love having this board right at the front so that I can refer back to our anchor charts and display them for all the kids to see.

 

It looks a little empty because I had already taken down our math concept, spelling words, and reading skill posters.  We put up new ones each Monday.

This little shelf holds everything I need!

 

You can see my Monday daily work drawer ready to go for when we come back from Fall Break, along with my reading manual.

I also keep tools nearby so that when I'm working under the projector, I don't have to keep getting up to go get things.  Everything is within arms reach.

 

Here we have crayons, scissors, a pencil is tucked down at the bottom, a glue stick, liquid glue, and tape.

Subitizing and ten frame cards for Number Talks.  You can check out a few posts on Number Talks here.

Skinny markers, I use these instead of a pencil when projecting because it's much easier to see on the board, paper clips, dice, cubes, extra mini-clothespins for our anchor chart board, and an expo marker.

Our remaining popcorn words for the year.

I need to reorganize these baskets because I've changed things up a little from the way I stored things in kindergarten.  I have a few extra math journals and phonics journals that are ready made in case we get any new students.  Math toolboxes are in the ziplock backs.  And my rekenreks are at the bottom.

Book Nook.

Kid magazines and books that we've made as a class.

A colorful lamp that my friend Mrs. Cindy is letting me borrow for the year.

Our workstation chart.

Since I moved to first grade this year, I leveled all of my books.

 

Whew!  What a task, especially because I did it when the air was out at school in the middle of July.  Not fun.

We've been exploring a different non-fiction resource each week.  I bought the entire year's set from A Year of Many Firsts.  So far we've read about apples and pumpkins.  When we come back from fall break we'll learn about spiders and bats.  So far my kids love these books and its a favorite in our Book Nook.

The bathroom.

What else is there to say.

 

I did use a magnetic basket to attach our hand sanitizer to the door frame.  So far its worked great and the kids see it right when they walk out the door so it serves as a reminder.

My small group area.

Love this cabinet!

 

The pink tubs on the top have some seasonal décor.  In my kindergarten room I had eight of these pink tubs.  I downsized to four.  The other two are in my garage.

 

The big baskets have cleaning supplies, hand sanitizer, tissues, etc.  Apparently I am a cleaning supplies hoarder.  When I moved everything from kindergarten down to this room, I decided that anything that didn't fit in one of these baskets would be donated to one of my teammates. 

 

And our field trip shirts are hanging up inside.

Extra snack supplies are in the clear plastic tubs on the right.



The first drawer has wipes and extra Band-Aids.

 

I had about 30 boxes of Band-Aids when I moved this summer.  So I put a few boxes in my Boo Boo Box, filled up the little purple basket, and the rest went bye-bye.

 



Easy access to plates and napkins for snack.

On this shelf we have my Magic Treehouse books, some prizes, my behavior binder, and some extra glue tubs and a tidy tub.

All of our Wonder reading series supplies.

Big books.

The little black container at the top is where I file anything that we are currently collecting, the pink basket is for papers that need to be filed, and the paper slots are my student mailboxes.

The baskets on the top have tools I use for small groups and the bottom two shelves have independent readers that go with our reading series.

Construction paper.

Privacy folders for when we take a test.

On the top shelf I have some teacher resources, printable labels in the pink basket, and dry erase boards for small groups.

 

The bottom shelf has scrapbook paper, my assessment tub, and some intervention activities from Miss Decarbo. 

My teacher read-alouds.

My behavior clip chart and sticker charts.

 

I know lots of people have been getting rid of their behavior charts.  But mine works great for me, so until it stops working, I will continue to use it.

Everyone starts on green each day.  If a students ends the day on blue, they get one sticker, pink gets two stickers, purple gets three stickers.  When they fill up their sticker chart, they get a jewel on their clip.



You may think I have a lot of stuff crammed into this closet, but you didn't see all the stuff I gave away when I left kindergarten.  I knew that I was going from a ton of storage space...to this.  So I gave away a lot.

Extra dvds, puzzles, tape, and material on the top.

My books on cd from kindergarten.

Art supplies!

 

I love these containers from the Container Store.

Lakeshore heaven.

 

You better believe I kept all of my Lakeshore activities.  No way was I giving any of these babies away.

I keep a list of class numbers in case I forget.

 

I have 7 boys and 13 girls this year. 

 

Drama central!

We use this awesome magnetic pocket chart for word work.  I relocate it to our magnetic back door on days it's being used.

Filing cabinets.

 

This is another soon-to-be project.  Right now these filing cabinets are a hot mess of kindergarten and first grade files.



My treasure box; I made that thing when I was student teaching so it is now officially ten years old.  And my communication station, has things like: class rosters, lockdown forms, major behavior forms, and my communication binder with parent phone numbers.

 

And we've made a full circle back to my door.  I hope you've enjoyed my classroom tour!

 

There are definitely things that I love in this classroom and things that I need to spend some time organizing.  But overall our classroom is functional, and that's the most important thing.