As you walk through the door this is what you see...
This absolutely adorable "Miss Miller" sign was done by my dear friend, Becca Foxwell of First Grade in Foxwell Forest. This girl is a creative genius! I'm constantly stealing her ideas. If you haven't checked her blog out, you MUST! I can't wait for her to start posting her songs with gestures! You are going to fall over when you hear them.
These blue and black bins house our math workstations.
The one thing everyone notices when they walk into our classroom is how tall my desk is. I spray painted concrete blocks black (I spray painted all the other furniture in the classroom black) to "jack-up" my desk. I did this for two reasons... 1. To keep me from sitting down during the school day. I really need to burn as many calories as possible. 2. For classroom management. I found that when I sat behind my desk the students felt at ease to do as the pleased. Plus I couldn't see every student. Now that I'm standing, I can see what's going on. And I've found that the students pay better attention.
This is my version of the birthday straws on Pinterest.
As you can see I totally took Cara Carroll's amazing schedule freebie. We don't have color printers, so I just did black and white. Cara also has an amazing Calendar Companion that I have my seconds do for morning work a few days of the week. That's what all those black binders are for. You'll also notice the cute days of the week and months of the year done by Hadar of Miss Kindergarten.
My co-worker uses a similar system for keeping track of workstations.
Something else that's different about our room is the word wall. I spray painted 26 Dollar Store cookie sheets with black spray paint. All the word wall words are magnetic. -- Side Note: I have some pretty fantastic custodians at my school! This project would not have been possible without them! -- One thing I regret is putting the word wall so high. It would be perfect if it were on the floor level so the kids could go get the words.
This year each teacher in the district will have 4 reading groups. We used literacy workstations last year for the students who are not meeting with the teacher. With an additional rotation our 2nd grade team thought using "Read to Self" from the Daily 5 would be the best fit. Faced with the decision of where to store the books for "Read to Self" my friend and I set out on a hunt for the best fit for our classroom. After touring all the first grade classrooms in our building, we found that one teacher used tubs to store table supplies (math books, handwriting books, etc.). We decided this would work out well for the 5 books for "Read to Self." I'll let you know how it goes.
Gotta LOVE the 5 Finger Rule for picking books. 4-5 fingers is too hard!
Lots of manipulatives!
I love this carpet from Target last year!
We have two lines in our classroom, an even line, and an odd line. The numbers are posted to help students remember. Also we don't have classroom jobs. We have classroom leaders. One odd and one even number student does all the jobs, and special things like line leader, door holder, starting our songs for calendar and content songs, clicking on the Smart Board. Last year I got free Burger King crowns that the "King and Queen" of the classroom wore.
Stealing my fabulous co-worker's idea, I use seven $1 pocket charts from Target to display the activities students can pick to do at workstations.
A fellow 2nd grade teacher in our district shared this great idea to separate the colors. She suggested hot gluing base 10 blocks together. It worked just perfect!
Here is the classroom library that is finally leveled thanks to my superb classroom aide! I tried for 3 summers to do this myself, with no avail. She sat in the back of the room for weeks looking up levels. My sweet and giving 2nd grade girls put the stickers and tap on the books during their recesses.
Using the top ledge of the whiteboard to display unit books works well!
I love this Writer's Eye freebie! Cara Carroll has my teaching so much better with all her stupendous ideas! Also Melanie of School Girl Style has transformed my decorating! I totally took the colors of my room from her Rock Star Theme classroom. It was her idea to double layer the borders on my bulletin board. Also, the hanging tissue paper poms in the back of the room were her idea too! If you haven't checked out her work, YOU MUST! She has so many classroom themes that she has created herself!
Something else I've done since my first year of teaching is take pictures of the kids on the first day of school (I know you probably do this too), but just their faces. Then I print out full size pictures using only black ink. The kids love seeing themselves, but the parents love it more. Every year at back to school night the parents tell me how much they love seeing all the kids faces. I feel that this gives ownership to our classroom. It's not just my classroom, it's their home too.
I totally bought Melanie's name tags! They are fabulous, and even the kids from other classrooms have commented on how much they LOVE the name tags. Again, I don't have a color printer, so I printed them in black and white, and used a Sharpie for the color border. Her name tags come with two options in the pack - Zebra or Leopard.
Who hasn't fallen into making their own crate seats? It was so worth the hours of labor! The kids love them more than I do.
Well there you have it folks... pop-in for a virtual visit anytime!
I'm teaming up with Courtney from Swimming Into Second for a linky party...
