You’ve seen my teaser pictures on social media. You know I’ve been hard at work on this. And today is the day. I know you’re all on the edge of your seat…waiting…anticipating…clamoring to see what I did with my new space!
First of all….let me just say that I love my new space. It’s HUGE and….wait for it… it’s a nice big square. You see, my old room was small and shaped like a W. True story. So, I’m embracing my new large space.
Still doing no tables and no desks! Of course. EVERYONE Should be doing this!!!!
So…without any more ramblings from me…here it is!
WELCOME TO ROOM 134!!!
Here are some special areas of the classroom!!!!
The Great Hall.
I love that we have a hallway leading into our classroom! This will make lining up so easy AND this will become an area dedicated to displaying student work!! How awesome that when people walk into our classroom, they will have to wander through a hallway of our work!?!?!
The Great Hall is also where our math and literacy center tubs and baskets will be located! Ah, the much sought after reading tubs!!!
Our whole group area with our stage and Smart board!
Notice the big comfy chair!!! Ummm….I wanted a big comfy chair and I found this one for ….$20. Yep. I’ve ordered a slipcover for it so it will be a big comfy red chair!!
Guided Reading/Small Group Area
Notice how everything is red?! Our school is color coded so I’m on the red wing…hence the red! I actually had to search out a red table because mine was green. Ummm this ain’t Christmas people…no red and green!!
The built in shelves behind the table are great for all of my teacher necessities. Like the 456 packages of smelly markers, the 1,098,876 paper clips and my Sonic drink. Sonic drinks are required in my classroom.
Here is our classroom library!
I love that the library can now be in the middle of our classroom! I like that it shows that reading is central to everything we do!
I am slowly replacing all of my book bins with these white ice buckets from WalMart. People…they are $1.68 each. I need 8 more…because WalMart only has a few out at a time. But I digress…
The plastic pool is back. But I’ve filled it with all of our stuffed animals.
And we have a new addition to the ‘staches! Meet the Norman the Gnome! He hangs out in the classroom and will become part of our writing and other fun stuff!
The Word Wall
Here is our word wall! It’s magnetic so the words can be pulled off by the ‘staches and used in their writing! I also did not divide the word wall into sections this year! Something new I’m trying. I like the clean look…
Above the word wall is an idea that I got from my sweet friend Lisa at All Ya’ll Need!
It’s a timeline! I made mustaches for each month of school. At the end of each month, we will add some pictures from the month to our timeline! Then we can have memories of our year and hopefully we can even use this for some writing fun!
Since we have no tables/desks, we need spaces to work and be creative and brilliant! We use bath mats from WalMart and Target. Bath mats are great because they don’t slip! And they hold up well and they can be washed! And sprayed with Lysol. Lots of Lysol!
We also use clipboards to do our work! I have 2 sets of clipboards….one is painted and one is not. These are stored in laundry baskets under the word wall. Laundry baskets are the perfect size for both mats and clipboards. Who knew?!
And because we don’t have desks or tables, we use community supplies! I am a HUGE advocate of community supplies! Why? It fosters sharing, it fosters community and it makes a significant impact into how students treat supplies. With community supplies, we have pressure from our friends to take care of OUR supplies! I credit community supplies with making a big impact on the classroom community we build each year!
Here is our hippopotamus area! This is where the ‘staches check to see which hippopotamus/center/workstation they need to be at! This is also where our sensory bin and lightbox will be located!
Now…if you notice, there is a lot of blank space in our classroom. Because…it’s not my classroom to decorate. This space belongs to my ‘staches so they get to decorate the space with their work!
We have spots for our anchor charts so we can constantly have access to our learning!
We have our BECAUSE on display! This a simple but very effective way to bring higher order thinking into the early childhood classroom! My friend Jen Jones at Hello Literacy taught me this during a professional development session!
This is new to the classroom this year! Our growth chart. I plan to take a picture of each ‘stache in front of the growth chart on the first day of the month to compare our growth!
This is my fave! It’s our Instagram bulletin board!!! I stapled the 1st Day letters on so we change the hashtag whenever we want! This will be another fun way to display photographs of our year and incorporate those pictures into our writing!
Yep, I’m very happy with our new classroom!
I have to give a HUGE MEGA GLITTERY AND MUSTACHE-TASTIC shout out to my friends at Creative Teaching Press!!!!
They are AMAZING to work with and love teachers!!!!!!! And I am so lucky to get call them friends!!!!! For real. We’re friends!
They provided so much mustache goodness and rainbow goodness for my new classroom!!! I love their new Painted Palette line of classroom decor. And when paired with mustaches…it’s amazing!!!!!!!
THANKS CTP!!!! I HEART YOU!!!!
Now, check out this trailer of our classroom and click HERE to go to YouTube for a full video tour of the space!
JOIN THE GLOBAL CHALLENGE! #happyclassrooms