My New Kindergarten Room

Hi Again! After a few weeks of hard work, shopping, taping, gluing, and organizing the room is ready to go, and boy does it look great! Here's before...

I am so pleased with my new room. I love it's size, paint colors, windows with natural light, and the layout. It's a nice upgrade for me (from the portable) and I know I will greatly enjoy being here. If you can't tell it's ocean themed, something the previous room teacher had decorated. She was the one that chose the paint colors and painted the walls, made/bought the window curtains, and  created a few of the bulletin boards. All in all, it's about 50% her, 50% me. While she luckily left me some stuff, a lot of it I recycled from my own room, or bought/created new things. I hope you enjoy taking a look around the room.

AFTER!

My teaching area. Down below are my rules, "Give my 5 Signs, Listening Center, and Coloring Rubric.

 Our Rules

View from my guided reading table. 

I love my sea animal table markers! 

Our class bulletin board! It says "Whalecome to Kindergarten!"

 I made this "Ocean Themed" job display which you can download from teacher's pay teachers here!

 Our Library

 I love my book labels! 

 These were left from the previous teacher, and are AMAZING. Such a nice organized way to store their backpacks.

The rest of the wall is our Birthdays, and Storage closet, kid's work display!

I made these "Ocean Themed" word wall letters and words that will go up as I teach them! Download them here. 

My Teaching nook, art supplies, math work table, and the blue bulletin board will be our standards/learning goals!

Close up of my standards, learning goals. They're on rings so I can flip them to the standard we're focused on that day/week/unit.

 My math center and supply area. To the left is my science table/area.

 This will be filled with the kids pictures as the school year goes on. 

Our Schedule, while this is from my old classroom chalkboard theme, It went well with my chalkboard door to the left and black border on the bulletin board to the right. 

Talk About Change...Kinder Here I Come!

So this is weird to say, but I'm no longer a first grade teacher. It's true. I'm going to not only be a Kindergarten teacher but Team Leader as well! I'm excited and a bit nervous for the change. It's a big move, even though it's technically only 1 grade down, it's a huge difference in student independence, attention span, and experience in a school setting. The majority of the kids that will be coming to me will have never gone to head start or even PreK meaning this is their first time at school. Wow! Talk about pressure!

While it's overwhelming to think about right now, I know it's going to be a fun year and bring me lots of new exciting challenges to overcome. I also love the fact that I have a super awesome team that is not only similar in age with me, but also super hard working and collaborative. More to come on that as the year goes on...you'll love them!

With a grade change also means a room change, the first I've had to make and I will say I was a super unexcited about this. I had my old room set up perfectly and was really getting into the groove of things over there, but on the positive side this new room has 2x the space and it isn't a portable! YAYYYY! Another bonus is that the teacher before me decorated the room beyond cute and left me a lot of her decorations (and had it painted great colors to begin with).

So here is my new room before...holy disaster. 

I've been working on it all last week and will continue next week and have already made HUGE progress thanks a past teacher and friend, Danielle! Hopefully by the end of next week I'll even be able to post after pictures, but am still waiting on a few more bookshelves to be delivered before that can happen.

Looking forward to showing you the reveal! Happy Summer :)

Room Reveal!

I absolutely LOVE seeing other teacher's classrooms, not only in my school but on Pinterest or throughout my county and boy does my school have some AMAZING classrooms! There is always something new to see that give me a zillion ideas, or simply something I steal from them. I love to see the different ways to decorate, organize, and layout rooms. I did some minor changes to the layout of my room, but did a lot of redecorating. I'm really happy with it so far. It's super bright, open, inviting, and playful. Hope I can give you some new ideas.

 Front of the Classroom (this changed around a lot!)

Math/Science Area

Math/Science Area - Science posters will go on the wall there (covering that ugly brown box) and their names will go on velcro to easily change them into different groups.

Math Centers Materials (Their Math Journals are organized by their math center groups)

 Computers/Safe Spot/Listening Center

 Close up of my Listening Center - Oh How I love it so!

Safe Place (I kept this the same as last year)

 Classroom Library

I organize the books by fiction (blue), nonfiction (green), and author study (purple)

Front Door (with word wall/writing center/Cubby Area)

 Our Interactive Word Wall (currently all Pre-Primer Dolch words are up on the board)

Our Writing Center

 Our Morning Procedures (I will take pictures of the kids as they do the activities to help understand our routines)

Our Class Commitments (I will take pictures of the kids acting these commitments out and add them)

New Literacy Centers Rotation

 Birthday Display, I'm going to take pictures of the kids holding a sign with the day of their birthday.

Star of the Week!

Bulletin Board (that's off center because the chart and TV block it) and Vocabulary Chart/Center Work

If you have any questions about anything you saw on display, the layout, a way I organized something please do not hesitate to comment below. I'm happy to answer any questions you may have. I also have almost all of my labels you see here for download/purchase - some are free and some cost money (all reasonably priced and package opportunity available).

Welcome Back...

Coming back from a holiday break is always semi stressful. If you're like me, I take my holiday breaks as that, a break. Meaning I get everything ready for my return before the holiday begins so I can be "school" free and enjoy my time off doing as I wish. Absolutely no plans and no grading. So this Thanksgiving I arrived to school early to ease my "stress" and give me time to review plans, get C.J. the fish back in his tank, and make a few last minute copies. Little to my surprise that was the LEAST of my worries.

Surprise surprise, I was welcomed back with the wonderful sound of running water escaping from every possible area of my portable. Oh Joy! The water fountain in my portable burst over the break and had been continuously filling and flooding my room leaving 1-2 inches of standing water for about three or four days. Needless to say, I FREAKED out! 

Anything that was remotely touching the floor was ruined; pillows, rugs, big books, a lot of our new Houghton Mifflin Curriculum, and even the bookshelves! Not only did it ruin anything it came in contact with, but it's humidity caused the majority of my books, posters, and hanging curriculum to bend and cockle (look wavy) or even better…grow mold!

After the initial shock sunk in, I frantically split my class for the day while I threw away my hard earned, soaking, money into the trash can and slowly but surely transferred the "necessities" into my temporary classroom. Luckily, our school has an extra portable used for an after school parent/child participation & involvement program, "Great Endings". They graciously lent me the room for the expected 2-3 weeks it was going to take to repair my portable. (Thank heavens for that…I've heard some horror stories when floods happened to other teachers in prior years.)

2 weeks roll by, no room. 

Christmas break comes and goes, no room. 

The month of January has long past, no room.

FINALLY…2 Months later,  I was able to get back into my room with wonderful new carpet, laminate flooring, baseboards, bookshelves, and rugs/pillows/decorations. I cannot tell you how big of a relief this was! As nice as it was to have another classroom to go to,  it was FILLED with fun toys, blocks, dolls, play areas, and crafts for the parents and children who typically reside in the room. Let's just say my 6 and 7 years had a bit of difficulty staying focused and where they were supposed to be while we were there. Also our routines and class size (this room was MUCH smaller) completely changed, not something this group handled well.

Anyways, as delighted as I was, it was a bit messy…

After two days of organizing, cleaning, decorating, organizing then cleaning some more, I finally got my room back in working order. With all of the additional hassle, stress, and cost this flood created, I could only look on the positive because the situation wasn't going to change no matter what my mood was, (although I might have slightly turned toward the end). I decided to look on the bright side and did my "summer classroom makeover" a little bit sooner than planned. :)

So here it is, my NEW and improved room! 
Please ignore any mess or clutter, it is being lovingly used by 15 crazy children! :)

View from Front Door

View From Back Door

This is my favorite part of my class and I think and the best activity of the year! At the very beginning of the school year, all of the children make self portraits and share their picture with the class talking about who they are. It adds such warmth to the class and is SO telling about the children's personalities and current developmental stage. 

Front of the Room/Whole Group Area

My Teaching Corner

Bulletin Board near Front Door/ This is where we do our greetings, Conscious Discipline Morning Routines, Recite our Classroom Commitments & Pledge! 

My Wonderful Promethean Board (RIP currently, the interactive pen isn't so interactive) but the projector works so I'll take it! P.S. I use this for just about everything, morning meeting, calendar math, I just love it!

Library

Writing Area

My Guided Reading Table

Listening Center and Safe Spot

More Safe Spot/Safe Place

I know it's weird to have my bathroom, but my kids just love it. I had the stickers since I started, but with the new flooring they just LOVE it. They call it the ocean bathroom!

Math Materials/Centers, Science Display, C.J. the Fish's Home, and Word Work (chalkboard door) area. Let's just say it's a multi use area. :)

View from my Office

 I hope ya'll enjoyed my room! If you have any questions about anything please feel free to leave a comment!