Classroom Tour #1

Well, folks! It's is finally here! A chance to share my classroom for this year. I'm in the same room as the past two years, but I changed it up just a little. I added in a bright coral and some black. I think the black really makes the colors pop! Evidently, I took way too many pictures! I am sharing some now and will share more in a few days! I'm going to tell a little about each picture. You can leave questions in the comments section below!

 This is what my classroom looks like when you walk through my door. Most of the time I only have on 2/3 of my lights. I have a lot of lamps and prefer those over the overheads. Just in case you are wondering (which a lot do!) the color over my lights are fabric rectangles. I put these over my lights because 1) I like color 2) It helps the lights not be so bright 3) My kids love them!

 This is my student supply area. Students are allowed to use any of the materials here. In the green bucket beside the lamp is a great haul of Mr. Sketch markers. At the end of the year, I always put my Mr. Sketch markers out for my students to use. We create a lot of student-created anchor charts and examples and the students love using scented markers!

 This is under my focus board and whiteboard. These are my Speaking & Listening standard posters. You can find them here. We are going to talk about these on Friday before our book shares begin!

 These are my Flip Books for Parent Night! I had these out for my parents at opening house. They loved them and all the information they were able to take home and read right away. You can download it here.

 This is probably one of my favorite areas in my classroom.... my classroom library. It has taken a while (and a lot of Donors Choose projects) to get this library where my students have plenty to read! My students are not allowed to check out books from our school library right away. It was so great to put books in the hands of my students on the second day of school! I plan on using the green board to display our Scholastic goal chart, anchor charts, and anything else!

 This is the view of my classroom from the back of my room. I have tables this year which I LOVE!

 Small group area and teacher desk area.

 This is behind my small group table. I store a lot of my teaching resources and personal things on these bookcases. I love having pictures of my family around my room. I think it helps your students feel that they are a part of your family! 

 This is where I store my task cards for reading and ELA. This was the best thing I did last year! You can download them for free here.

 My desk... there's a lot going on but everything I need is right where I need it :)

 I LOVE my Ikea desktop sorter :) It makes my heart happy!

 One of my favorite places in my room... my document camera station. I use this every.single.day! Can any of you NOT live without it?

 This is my adorable wooden door hanger by no other than myself! If you are interested in one of these, leave your email in the comments section and I can send you an invoice. I have two of these available for only $35 each! It even comes with a small chalkboard area for your very own personalization! {Please note they do not say "welcome back."}

 This is a view of my small group area from my classroom door. This is the area you first see when you walk in!

 I LOVE my Instagram wall and can't wait to change it out with some of our very own Instagram photos from the classroom!

Lastly, this is my beautiful view from my small group table. I think it's important for your room to be a place you love to be. I think I have accomplished that and I truly LOVE the bright coral and black I added this year!

Questions? Comments? Leave them below and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!

Around the Classroom

Last year, I posted a million pictures of my new 5th grade classroom. As I got ready to start back this year, I was fortunately in the same classroom. Everything pretty much went right back to where it was before. My room is kind of small, so there's not really many options. This year, I got *REALLY* tired of never having enough room. My students would have to move up for someone to get by, things would have to be moved to fit at the small group table, and it was just CRAZY! I had been wanting to move my small group table in front of my desk for long time, I just wasn't sure I would like it. To be honest, I really don't like my desk facing the wall, but it is definitely growing on me, and not having a whiteboard behind me really bothers me. Fortunately, I have an easel that I can easily wheel over to use if needed.

I wanted to share photos of my new small group area, so I decided that I would share a few pictures of my other favorite places, too! There's really nothing to take away from this post, but I know that I always enjoy checking out other teachers' classrooms!

My super awesome small group caddy that keeps all my pencils, pens, markers, and highlighters!

My teacher desk :) Up against the wall :(

It's the little things...

Can you tell I love pens??? LOL

My homework board :)

My new focus/objective board. I am *SO* in love with this thing :)

My husband built me these wonderful wooden apple bookends. 8 years going strong!

Document Camera Station

My Library
{with lots of new books}

**MORE NEW BOOKS** I Love Them!!!!

I still love my Thirty-One wall organizer!

Teacher Organization!!!

What keeps me sane :)

My kids love book shares. Every week my students sign up to share their current favorite read! This is their most *FAVORITE* time!

My Word Work Supplies

My Evidence Board

I had to add in my Christmas tree :)

My vintage Charlotte's Web novel :)

More Bookshelves & Storage

My reading chair... I spend a lot of time here :)

Focus Board.. YAY!

Hi guys!  I'm so impressed that I'm going to have more than one post this week... say what??  I wanted to share my new focus board with you.  It's still a work in progress, but I'm pretty happy with it.  I have moved all of my things into one central location at the front of the room.  Here's what it looks like.

It may be difficult to see, but the top left are our "We Can" statements.  In the past, my district required us to post "I Can" statements with the standard.  I have decided that I like "We" because it instills a sense of community in the classroom.  I *just* realized that I forgot my subject area labels for this block. Oh well, guess I'll fix that tomorrow.

In the bottom left, I have our EQs for each subject I teach.  These are directly related to the standard or "We Can" statement that we are focusing on for each day.  To the right of that you will see our weekly skills area.  Again, this is correlated to both the EQs and the "We Can" statements.  I love that the students have one place on Monday where they can come and check what we are studying that week.

Above it are our 'no excuse' words.  These are words that our district has identified for 5th grade students to know how to spell.  They should have "no excuse" for not knowing them.  I have 20 each week and then we add them to our word wall.  I highly encourage the use of our word wall during writing.

In the {ugly} green pocket chart are our prefix, suffix, and root words.  I'll go into that tomorrow :)  They are color-coded to match what we are doing in class.

 Here's what that area of my board looked like at the beginning of the year... blah!  I rarely used it even though I knew I should.  To be honest, I don't even think the students looked at it much.

You may remember how *unhappy* I was about this focus wall.  This is where it use to be.  Now, I have both places (and purposes) combined into one!

I just love my new focus wall.  I was so excited to talk to the students about it today!

Teacher Week '13: Classroom Digs

I'm a little late linking up with Blog Hoppin for their Classroom Digs, but I have a good excuse :)  Tomorrow is Open House and I've been getting things ready like crazy.  I'm going to be a day late on all of these... but that's okay :)  I've waited so long to show off my classroom.  As you probably already know, I moved grades and subjects this year.  So, I started off with a clean slate.... literally.  It has taken hours upon hours to get my room the way I want it.  I still have a few things to finish, but I'm in first day of school mode right now.

Classroom Digs

This is the view of my classroom right when you walk into the door.  I made a sort of 'foyer' by placing a long short bookshelf in front of the door.  I like this :)  You can see it a little better from the picture below.

This is the shelf where I will store my Word Work bins.  So far, I have two that have something in them and two that are empty ;).  I also have my dictionaries and supply bins here.

This is right beside my door.  It's a place to house kleenex, sanitizer, and student supplies.  I got this shelving unit from Ikea and I LOVE IT!  Such a space saver.  The reminders board is where I have the students write if their transportation changes or if a teacher has a note to me about a behavior check.

Love my genre posters from Molly {Lessons with Laughter}.  They are so cute and my letters made with my Silhouette are awesome!

This is my homework board made with vinyl letters from my Silhouette and washi tape.  I just love it!

This is where my 'I Can' statements will go.  I usually have all my standards posted and highlight the ones we are working on, but there are soo many with ELA.  I will be using my 'I Can' statements found here.  They are gray/white chevron with a cute frame.  I also love how my alphabet from Kristen turned out.

This is my reading area.. please ignore the paper with the spray painted frame on it.. hehe.  I {LOVE} my lantern light and curtains.

These are my book baskets that I purchased from Really Good Stuff.  I simply created some really cute {& simple} frames, placed two hole punches in the top, and tied a white ribbon.  I love how simple they look and the size of the baskets.  These are the large rectangular ones.

More reading baskets {notice I ran out of the white ribbon with these.}  But, that's okay!  At least it's not on the same shelf.  The top of this shelf is where I will have my spotlight books.  RIght now, it's two of my favorites and a back to school.

This is my CAFE board that is right beside my small group area.  I have decided that I WILL allow the students to write the cards.  This is a biggie for my since I like things nice and neat.  We shall see how this goes!

Figurative Language posters from Molly... love

This is my small group area.  I have everything I will need here.  Including great new stools from Ikea.  They are awesome!

I love my little caddy I made to house our small group supplies so every student can have access.  I'll throw in some pencils & dry-erase markers.

I love this storage cart from Michaels.  It is where I store my Word Work supplies, extra post-its, and my CAFE board strategy cards.  I still have a few drawers to fill up.

I'm not too crazy about this {nor am I done with it} but I think I can make it work.  I really hate the green since it doesn't go with any of my decor but it was all I had.  This is where our spelling words and vocabulary words will be.  Like I said, I'm still not done and I'm hoping it will look a little more pulled together once I am finished with it.

These are my book boxes for both of my classes {I teach 2!}  Both classes will share the same book box.  That's an entirely different post that I will have to do later.  I use a number system and I love it.  It also helps with students sharing.

This is my writing area with my VOICES board.  I will put strategy cards here on the board as we discuss them.  On this board, I made the ruffle border with white fabric.  It was a pain in my arm, but I love how it turned out.

Love this freebie.

This is my dry-erase board that I made.  It was a Monday Made It that never made it to Monday Made It...  lol  I actually just went back to link up to my post about it when I realized I never did it... Oops!  Anyways, I will post a weekly quote on this board each week.  I'm so excited about this.

This is my mess of a teacher are with the trash can over flowing!

The front view of my teacher area.  You can view the wreath tutorial above my bookshelf here.  I really like the way it turned out.  I also love my Thirty-One Wall organizer beside my filing cabinet.  If you need one of those, I can hook you up and get it directly shipped to your house.  I'm a consultant so let me know if you are interested.  Heck, you can even host a party and get it for free.  We don't have to be neighbors... you can do a catalog order :)  For real though, if you are interested let me know {terri.renee09@gmail.com}

I also love my picture frame with no picture :)

This is the view looking towards the front door.

This is my whole group / Smartboard / Document Camera area.  I'm soooo excited about having a document camera this year.  Hopefully I can play around with it tomorrow :)

This is my Word Wall.  The letter headers are free in my TpT shop.

This is the view of my classroom from my desk.

Open House... ready to go!

Love my informative flip book... ignore the blue paper.  That is not part of it.

I hope you have enjoyed looking around my room as much as I love being in it.  I think it's important that you and the students both want to be in the classroom together and I think I accomplished that this year.