Classroom Tour (in pictures)

Tomorrow is the first day back to school. I spent last week in meetings and getting my classroom all set up. I even went in on Friday when we had the day off to lesson plan. I am glad that I did though because I am so ready. I always get nervous/excited to start a new school year. This will be my 5th year and I've never been so ready. In my last post, I had a video of my classroom tour and I promised pictures. So here they are!

 

This is the wall right next to the door. The door is on the left (out of frame). I love having this wall set up with class lists, bus routes, supply lists, and lunch forms. It makes it easy to catch every parent/student walking in and just make sure that all of the information I have is correct. After the first week I will turn this into a bulletin board featuring the students and eventually it will be our data wall. The chart underneath the bathroom sign is my behavior management clip chart. You can see a separate post on that here. Then of course we have the bathroom. I have a love/hate relationship with having a bathroom in my class. Luckily my BFF (and teacher next door) came up with a genius solution. More about that in another post.

Now we're just going to go around my room in a circle. This is the area where things are just "hanging out". This is the door to the teacher next door, a.k.a. BFF. It is also where I store one of my easels. If you notice the posters hanging around my room with characters from books, I made those!!

Here is my sink area and storage. This is the only storage in my entire room. I am so jealous of the other teachers in our school because they have a wall of storage, which could be a good or bad thing depending on how you look at it. I am a person that needs everything hidden or else it just looks cluttered, so for me, it would be a good thing. Also, if you notice the little pants. Those are my Smartie Pants. You can find more information on those here.

Here is my reading area. This is actually a new spot in my room. Before it was just an empty corner that was never used and now it will be where all of my kids meet to listen to read alouds. I eventually want to make those crate seats to have in this area, but that will have to be another project sometime this year. You can also see my reading fluency wall, again another post will be made specifically for that.

Here are my standards. I love my new standards wall. It looks so clean and organized. I don't have to write anything on my board anymore, I just have to slip them in and out of pocket protectors. How easy is that!!! I also used electrical tape to separate the board and I love that stuff.

This is the view from where I teach. I do a lot of teaching on the floor, but when we have to use the document camera and projector, this is where we go. It's taken many years to figure out this arrangement. I am planning on doing a blog post on how to set up your classroom with tables. I have tons of pictures and advice on this subject so expect that soon. 

This is my main meeting area. I loved how the carpet looked on the tile and even though I have carpet on this side of my room (Don't ask, my room is set up so strangely.) I still liked that it outlined where the kids should be. You can see my math wall (post later) and my calendar wall. I'm going to be buying Mountain Math so that wall will transform within the next month or so. Then I have more storage, but it is so awkwardly shaped that I can't use it for much. I would have loved a corner instead. This corner is always a work in progress because it always looks so cluttered.

This is my intervention table. Just like my classroom tables, this has been all over my room. I am hoping that this placement works because it blocks off the cubbies during the school day and it still gives me a view of the whole classroom. The shelves about my cubbies and those shelves full of supplies are so distracting. I have fabric to cover them up as well as curtains for the windows, but the fire marshall is coming so you know how that goes...

This is my teacher area. Not too exciting or pretty. You can't even see any of it unless you are staring from the cubbies. I like it that way. I hate walking into a teachers classroom and see an island just for them that takes up half of the room. I wish I could get rid of the teacher's desk, but we aren't supposed to have any of our furniture moved out of the rooms.

Here is the final part of my room, my library. Most of those books are from the Goodwill. The bookshelves are made by my dad. I told him he needed to go into business designing furniture for teachers. 

That does it for my classroom tour. If you have any questions about what you see or want some detailed information, leave a comment and I'll be happy to answer them. Also, leave a comment with a link to your classroom pictures. I love seeing how other people set up their rooms.