Classroom Tour 2016

It's finally done. Like for reals, done. Okay that's not quite true...I have already changed things around since I took pictures last week. That's because our amazing grandparent volunteer, who is THE best ever at everything, helped me rearrange and got rid of my awful tech cart and made everything oh-so wonderful. So, I will have to add more pictures to show just how fabulous that came out!
We went from this....

To this...

Here's the full view of the classroom! It is so bright and colorful and I love it! Minus the horrid cart which is now a distant memory...

My math and calendar wall...

Meeting area....

Writing center! I love how this came out. The bins are all from the dollar store and house all of our editing pens, erasers, scissors and highlighters for working on pieces.

My inspiration door! I had to read these to my kids one day, I always forget they don't know cursive!

Our daily schedule and hand signals. I keep the tubs up top to house extra supplies that we go through throughout the year.

Our behavior chart. I just use clips to move kids up and down throughout the day. I should probably use them more, sometimes I also forget what a great tool they are!

Our job chart! 

Since we have tables, organizing supplies has been super duper challenging! So the kids have a basket for their literacy materials and a magazine box for their math supplies. The baskets came from the dollar tree and the magazine boxes are from Ikea. In their literacy baskets the students keep their book bags, reading journals, writing folder and dictation folders. When they come in they just grab them on their way to their seats and then put them up before we line up for lunch. I HATE these math boxes. They are too small and are pretty flimsy, some are already falling apart and we are a month in... yikes! They keep their math folders, math journals and station games in here. I will definitely have to come up with a better plan for next year, because this just isn't working for me!

Math center cart, Friday Folder basket and homework folder basket and attendance buckets...

How we go home chart!

Library!

I love how my cozy corner turned out! I have fiction and my leveled library on this side

and non fiction and chapter books on this side.

That's it for now, I still need to get my teacher area organized and get some pics of my updated cart/TV situation, but this here is where I have been spending my lovely days in 2nd grade and it is such a wonderful space!! I thank my lucky stars everyday that I get to be back in elementary!

9 years!

Last Monday marked the beginning of my ninth year teaching. I seriously cannot believe that I have been doing this for almost a decade!

At ACU, I did a victory lap (4 1/2 years of college) and was blessed beyond belief to have my first interview and job within a few days of graduating. I would be teaching 6th grade reading at a small rural school in east Texas. I loved my first position. Those students, the amazing people I worked with and just being in a small town are things that I will never forget. It's crazy to think that my first "batch" of kiddos will be graduating college in a year!

After being there for 4 1/2 years, I made the huge transition to move back home to Colorado. I was terrified to move and not have a new position lined up, but God had a plan. After being settled back with my family for about a week, I applied for every single job I was qualified for. Just a few days later, I was offered a job at a very large and very urban school. The TOTAL opposite of where I had been for the past few years. I have been at my current school for 5 years and everyday is a new adventure! 

Organization is always something that I have excelled at, but I am always happy to borrow ideas. As they say (I always wonder who "they" is?) "There are no original ideas in education." At my current school we have no main library. All of the literacy teachers have a classroom library. I, thankfully, inherited a pretty well stocked and organized my library and have streamlined my check out process and I thought I would share.

It is super easy to utilize shelf space effectively. I use plastic shoe box bins from Target or the dollar store. My books are organized according to genre which I have labeled with neon colored note cards, I love bright colors at school!  Each box is labeled and students have easy access to the books and they can reshelf them independently. Functional and pretty!