2015-2016 Classroom Tour

The school year is off to a great start! The children are adjusting well and we are having a blast so far! I am teaching first grade again this year, and I do have to say I LOVE it!  I do love so many things about Kindergarten, but I also love first grade too!

This year, I was fortunate enough to be able to open a brand new school! The process has been so FUN, yet SO exhausting.  We are looking forward to building a school climate that reflects learners in the 21st century – keeping in mind that we don’t have to do it the same way it’s always been done.

I would love to show you some more pictures of our beautiful school, but for now, I will start off with just my classroom.

This classroom is unfortunately not my permanent classroom.  I will be moving again next year to the “first grade learning commons.”  Because our building is not yet at capacity, we are filling the spaces on the first floor before moving to the second floor.  I am not looking forward to moving again next year (3 years in a row!), but we all have to make sacrifices to do what’s best for kids!

So, without further ado…my new classroom!

All of our school furniture comes from Smith Systems.  Our principal jokes that if she ever needs a different job, she can work for them – it’s a lot of work choosing and ordering furniture for a new school!

We have 2 different kinds of chairs in our classrooms – both allow children to “wiggle” in their chairs.  One has a wobbly seat and the other has a flexible back.  They are all also designed so that the children can sit backwards in their chairs – straddle-style.

My red chair is from Ikea – and I LOVE it!

I’m still on the fence about this reading table – I think it’s going to be a bit small for guided reading groups.  I took out the chairs and added these red stools from Ikea so it wouldn’t feel so “squishy.”  In year two, we will be able to choose if we want to keep these tables, or go with a different style.

This room is our small group room.  It connects to the classroom next door.  We can bring in small groups of children for intervention or allow children to work independently.  Right now I have it set up as a listening station.  I also have my leveled books and personal books in here.

This is my meeting/teaching space. See that blank space on the wall?  Nothing is missing – there is no Interactive White Board, but instead we have Interactive Projectors.  They work just like IWBs, but with no bulky screen.  We use our fingers or styles to write directly on the wall.  The projector is also mounted low enough that we won’t need to use step stools for children to reach what they need to reach.

This cart will hold my word work for Daily 5 this year.  Last year, I used my handy dandy Ikea drawers and had 5 choices out at one time – this year, I plan to have 10 choices available at all times.

This area houses my writing center and other writing activities for Work on Writing.  I will be adding to the bulletin board as the year progresses.

Mailboxes, book boxes (messy! ack!) and work on writing activities.  You can also see the window that looks into my small group room.

I’m using my Ikea drawers just for our math rotations this year.  The right side will hold partner games and the left will house independent activities that they can work on when they finish their math journals.

This board is right as you come into the classroom.  It houses all of the important info that I might need at a glance.  The blank piece of paper is for our fire escape plan. 

These are the lockers where students will store their coats, backpacks, etc.  On the back side of the carts are cubbies that we will later use to store backpacks.  We need all the space we can get in those lockers when winter comes!

I’m trying something new for my word work lists that I learned from Miss Decarbo.  I will have more info on those later.  We are just starting our word work, and once we have our routine down, I’ll use my data from the Words their Way Spelling Inventory to assign individual word lists to students.

I had to include this because it just turned out so cute!  We developed our class rules ourselves and then did these super sweet directed drawings.  It makes me happy when I look at it!

This is one part of my classroom library.  The children already love reading here, and it makes me so happy! Our leveled library is housed in a cart in our small group room.

This space is at the front of my classroom.  I wanted a designated sport for anchor charts so the children will always know where to look for support.

So there it is! I hope you like my classroom! We are certainly loving it so far!  I’ll go into more detail about some of the finer details in the coming weeks!

Comment below if you have questions!