Finally...classroom reveal!!

Bloggers, I am exhausted.  It's so hard trying to get used to a new building and a new team and new procedures and a new grade and everything!!  And all at once! Kids start on Monday, as I've mentioned, and I'm looking at probably still having to go in tomorrow AND Sunday to try to finish up as much as I can! But, as I promised, I am FINALLY posting pics of my classroom!  Pretty much the only part that isn't finished is my library area... I still have more organizing and sorting and book unpacking that I want to do.  So pardon the fact that I'm not quite done with that area yet! :)

I'm linking up this post with Brigid's Classroom Tours Linky, and with Courtney's Show Off Your Space Linky!

Welcome to my new classroom!!

BEFORE, whole-class view:

AFTER, whole-class view:

BEFORE, entry corner:

AFTER, entry corner:

(Thanks Kristen for the fun numbered supply labels!)

BEFORE, front of classroom:

AFTER, front of classroom:

(Thanks Angi for the lovely birthday stars!)

(I don't have a before of my teacher corner...haha)

BEFORE, math wall:

AFTER, math wall (and new home of kidney table):

BEFORE, library corner and back wall:

DURING (haha), classroom library:

AFTER, back wall:

(Thanks Rachelle for the Boggle letters that look great in my classroom...even though I haven't added the actual Boggle letters yet...the header still looks great!)

BEFORE, back whiteboard (and old home of kidney table):

AFTER, back whiteboard (now CAFE board and gathering area!):

(Thanks Kristen for the CAFE letters, which actually served as the whole inspiration for beginning this journey into the world of teacher blogging!!)

BEFORE, cabinets:

AFTER, cabinets:

(The change here was more internal...and you can now see how many storage containers I have left over!)

BEFORE, sink area:

AFTER, sink area (and now word wall!):

And one more view, from the back of the room to the front of the room:

Still more last-minute things to do before I'm ready for students... but I've worked hard and wanted to finally share my progress!  Hope you enjoy! :D

 

Classroom theme linky!

I was so excited to find Corinna's classroom themes linky, and to see some of the other fabulous ideas out there!  I want to share what I will be doing in my classroom this year, too!

I decided to go with a polka-dotted theme, using mostly black and white, but throwing in some green, blue, purple, and probably the other colors as well.  So here is a little bit of what I have worked on so far:

Some letters to use on my word/vocabulary wall

Close-up on my clip chart, so you can see the tiny polka-dots on each color!

The header for my "Cranium Club" display - more on this in a later post!! :)

 Some fun things I picked up at Michael's, Hobby Lobby, and Target!

Unfortunately I can't share any actual classroom photos, because I haven't been able to move into my new classroom yet!! I can show you this though:

The current location of my classroom materials!! (And that's only half the closet - the other side is just as packed!)

Now it's YOUR turn!! Share your classroom theme and some of your creations/decor for the upcoming year!

The Teacher Keeper!

Happy July 6th!! :)  Hope everyone had an enjoyable holiday on Wednesday!  I had a few friends over to my apartment, and we watched my (new) town's fireworks...and we didn't even have to drive anywhere!!  My town apparently shoots off their fireworks from just down the street where my apartment is, so my friends and I laid a sheet on the lawn next to my apartment building, and had a great view! :)

I'm starting to get used to the new town (but not to this oppressive heat wave we currently have!) and found my way to Office Max and to Michael's (which was in the next town over, but still, not too far away!) to collect some materials for the project I wanted to attempt today - my Teacher Keeper.

I actually made one this past spring when Angi showed me her "big book of everything".  A central place to keep all your important documents...hello, brilliant idea!  So I quick whipped one up too, with my then-limited creating and envisioning skills.  This is what it looked like:

Notice how advanced the design is...and the fact that the page for the front cover doesn't fill the entire pocket.  Blech!!

And the inside: 

I could only have as many tabs as came in the package of page dividers I had purchased, and I was at the mercy of the colors they decided to include in the package.  I'm not a huge fan of reds and yellows and the "warm" colors... I'm more of a green-blue-purple kind of girl.  So needless to say, I haven't been totally thrilled with the binder I had.  And some of the sections that I chose to create were not necessarily things that I would need to access on a regular basis.  Sooooo I decided that today I would make it my project to give my teacher binder a makeover!!

After shopping, I came back with these supplies:

Michael's had sets of cardstock in my favorite color schemes - I was so excited!! And that's right friends...I bought myself a paper trimmer!! No more having to trim sides time and again to make sure they are straight and even...boom!  Now I can do it in one fell swoop! (Plus, I had a 50% off 1 item coupon for Michael's... how could I not?) :)

So I got crafty, and this is the end result, of which I am 110% prouder than my first attempt!!

I even browsed around Pinterest for some naming inspiration, and came across Mrs. Pollard's creation, which you can see on her blog here.  I loved the name "teacher keeper" because it rhymes (for the most part) and literally it's going to keep everything useful that I need.  Yay!  I love using scrapbooking paper for the outside of binders now, because I can cut it to fit, and usually the pages have far more design than I could ever think to dream up!  Huge improvement!

Inside, I used Kristen's binder labels, found here, for the larger section labels.  I created the smaller ones, based on some of the same categories she used.  I have (the all-caps are her categories, and the sub-headings are mine):

PLANNING

calendar

lesson plans

standards

ASSESSING

INFO 

class info

behavior/management

ELL info

meeting notes

GRADING

references

AND I was able to do them all in the color scheme that I like!! I'm so excited with how the binder turned out, that now I kind of want to go through some of the pages I'm going to put inside and retype them...which I actually might do!  But probably tomorrow, because I should get some sleep! And Libby kitty wants some attention now too... so that might be a project for tomorrow! :)