Classroom Tour

Oh--the trials and tribulations of classroom design! After all, we spend more time there than in our own homes for a great portion of the day, week, month,--you get it! Trying to place things in an absolutely perfect location for both teacher, instructional assistants, students, is of a priority. And, we want to make sure it has a pleasing decor. Homelike. Comforting. Inspirational. I recently retired but I just realized I never posted pictures of my classroom. It was my absolutely favorite. 

Wouldn't you know that the summer after I retired the carpet was replaced? Bye-bye orange/red in your face carpet!

However, I do love carpet when it comes to letting the kids be all over the place--especially reading with each other!

And reading to self! I snagged this area rug at Target in a large size. Love, love, love the gray touches!

When I decided on the colors I was dreaming of aqua colored pocket charts. Again--Target to the rescue. This was the way I worked with the work station rotations. We were required to work in small groups during the short time the Instructional Assistant was in the classroom. In order to move quickly and meet with everyone, I had my kids in four groups. She met with two groups and I met with two groups each day--so everyone had instruction.

Hobby Lobby has the best fabrics that are of a good "first grade use" quality. It was easy to cover the crates with chevron in my color choices.

This was an in-project pic of the "corner". Half of the word wall is displayed on one side of the SmartBoard projected whiteboard. (That is a do-it-yourself projector displayed on the whiteboard using a SmartSlate). 

I covered all the bulletin boards with fabric and they lasted several years. I made the banner out of printed triangles filled with a chevron pattern. After laminating them I hot glued them to ribbon. Easy!

The inside of my door was decorated with a chevron wreath. I got the burlap ribbon at Hobby Lobby on the week they had 50% off ribbons.

This shows the corner with finished boards. I displayed our objectives to the left side of the Word Wall. I purchased the common core objects from TPT.

I was so glad to get rid of quit using the foam squares in the bright colors.

The blue and aqua baskets house parts of my classroom library: aqua is non-fiction, blue is famous authors.

The blue pocket charts served the purpose of hiding bookshelves crammed housing our old reading series books. They were good to use for reading to self. The yellow bins holds fiction books and were sorted by genres.

I purchased Ikea stools to use at my teaching table and used the crates at this table. My IA used this area for her small groups. She is the BEST ever!

We had four student computers and used those for several small group activities/station. Loved the long bulletin board over the back of the room. However--climbing on the computer tables to hang work was a bit challenging. It is a wonder I didn't fall/step on the keyboards.

When we started Daily 5 I used this area to show what it looks like and sounds like. I think I reminded those kids several times as we practiced, practiced, practiced!

I laminated aqua colored construction paper and hung it above our sink. I could showcase 18 of the kids' work. To the right of the board I added additional pages to use since I had 20 kids.

Wal-mart has these black bookcases for under $20. I covered the cardboard backs with more chevron fabric and used them at the end of the groups to make finding their book boxes easier.

All, in all, we have some great memories of Room 109!