Classroom Reveal

HELLO!! I am linking up with Angie from Lucky Little Learners and Ashley from Schroeder Shenanigans in 2nd for their monthly #2getherwearebetter linky party! And this month is all about the FABULOUS classroom reveal! And I promise, this month I am ready!!

Ok, so are you ready!?!? First of all, a little about me, so my room makes sense to you!

Welcome! My name is Melanie :) I am a first grade Literacy Teacher in Maryland. I have just started my 3rd year teaching. I am a mother of 4 and I was a career changer, after going back to school at age 27 to fulfill my dream of becoming a teacher. I love COFFEE and CHOCOLATE!

So first, let's look at the hallway. Our school was build in 2008, the KG classrooms have cubbies, but everywhere else in the building is lockers. I have labeled my lockers with super cute pencil labels from Educlips. I printed out the pencils, laminated them, then wrote their names in dry erase marker. We have many students who leave and join us throughout the year, so it makes changing names easy!

We have no space outside our room to hang student work, except above the lockers. The students drew self portraits on paper plates and wrote a sentence how they were feeling on the first day of school.

This is the doorway to my classroom. As you can see, we keep rubberbands on our doors to keep them unlocked--this way if we have to go into a lock-down situation we just open the door slide the rubber band down below the lock, and our door is automatically locked--no trying to find our keys and fool with it that way. My classroom also had to be labeled above the door with my name and the subject I am teaching (since we are all departmentalized--either teaching literacy or stem).

When students arrive in the morning, as soon as they enter my classroom, they make a lunch choice. I have their names written on cut-up pieces of paint swatches from Lowe's. I have my pocket chart labeled Lunch A, Lunch B, Lunch C, or Packers. When the student arrives, they take their name from the bottom and places it with whatever lunch they are getting. This way when I take attendance and lunch counts, I can see from one place who is present and what they've chosen.

So I have a large whiteboard in the front of the room. I used decorative tape to section it off and label what encore we are having today, tomorrow, what homework we have, as well as the date, and the helping hand. I think classroom jobs can be very useful. However, I just don't have the space or time to think about and changing 17 classroom jobs everyday. So I have every students' name on a paint swatch and every day the helping hand changes. This way the helping hand is in charge for that day with all classroom jobs--from taking the attendance to the office, putting the breakfast trash in the hallway, being line leader, passing out papers, and being the hall monitor.

The opposite site of my large whiteboard in the front of the room is also sectioned off with our "I can" statements. I can statements is kid-friendly objectives. Since I am teaching just literacy, we usually have 3-4 I can statements a day (for writing, language, phonics, and literature or informational).

To the left and right of my white board, I have 2 square bulletin boards. One of my bulletin boards is currently housing our classroom rules, but once they are routine, this board will change to hold our phonics posters. The other bulletin board is where our Writing Goals will be posted.

This small bookshelf houses all of the books that I've read aloud to the class. Once I have read it aloud, they have the opportunity to read it during read to self or read with a buddy time.

To the right of my bulletin board, I had a blank wall space. I decided to take some black butcher paper and create a make-shift bulletin board. This is where we will have our amazing words that we notice in our texts or writing. I have not introduced this yet to my kids (that's why there is no words on it :) ).

This is a mess right now! HOWEVER, this is the writing station. I was on a laminating roll before school started, and hadn't put away my lamination or laminator. This is has different kinds of paper and writing tools my little authors are able to use during our writers workshop time.

This is a far corner snapshot of my room. I am on the first floor, so I have an exit door. This is also my guided reading table, and I have all my teaching supplies and mentor texts behind my table.

This bulletin board is just our class names. Below it is part of our classroom library. I decided to make 2 separate libraries for more room. It seems that 1st graders like to spread out when reading, so I thought having 2 separate carpets would help :)

This is the dotted carpet. Students sit here during whole group lessons, as well as they can sit on this carpet during read to self or read with a buddy time. This back bulletin board will have the CAFE strategies on it.

This is my easel at the front of the carpet. I have a rocking chair to the left of it where I sit to do my whole group mini-lessons.

This is my word wall. I used the decorative tape to section it off with magnetic letters. The words are also on magnets and able to come off the wall if a student needs it. We follow Wilsons' Fundations for our phonics program, so we learn 'trick words'--which is another way to say word wall words.

This is the other bulletin board in my room that will be displaying student work. Above it, it says "our best work". I haven't had the time to put anything up here yet with the first few days of procedures and testing, but hopefully will have something up by the end of the week.

This is my listening center. Last year, each classroom had about 3 computers. This year, we got a whole LOTTA MAC books, however, we are supposed to use them for whole group lessons not as 'stations'. So unfortunately, my kiddos won't have computers as a rotation this year, so I just plugged this listening center in its' place.

Ok, so let's be real. This is my teacher desk. It's a mess, however, this is how it looks most of the time! I have buckets for pens, pencils, sharpies, and highlighters behind my laptop.

On my bathroom door I have a little Happy Birthday chart. I made little cupcakes for each month, and then cut those Lowe's pain swatches to make candles with their name, and the date at the top like the flame of the candle. (Can you tell I like those paint swatches LOL)

We have community supplies. Meaning that when students bring their supplies in, it goes into a pile. Each table has a caddy. In it, it has 5-6 glue sticks, scissors, a cup of pencils and dry erase markers, erasers, and 3 boxes of crayons.

This is a look from the back of the room towards the door.

This is the counter and cabinet space to the right of the room as you enter the door. I also have a sink and water fountain against this wall.

So this sums it up. After 9 days of teaching, I am tired!! Anyway, thanks for checking out my space! Make sure to check out all the other awesome bloggers' classrooms! Best of luck this year my friends!