Welcome to Room 15!

Getting ready to welcome kiddos into your classroom takes a ton of preparation and planning. Take one thing off your plate by using content posters from yearly curriculum to create a collage bulletin board! I love using this as my back-to-school bulletin board because... 1. it's QUICK and EASY! 2. it gives the students and their parents a snapshot of our school year.

Here is the front of our room. Our "Go For It" bulletin board is for centers and early finishers. (Look out for an upcoming blog post!) Our "Eagle Data" bulletin board ties into our school PBIS initiative. The class can earn White Eagle tickets for positive behavior and individuals can earn Blue Eagle tickets for positive behavior. This bulletin board shows students what they can earn with their Blue Eagles (10 - show and tell, 20 - prize box, 50 - Liberty prize, 100 - lunch in the classroom). We pin our White Eagles up to create a bar graph to track our White Eagle data; the categories are Hallway, Specials, Office, Cafeteria, and Other. The class determines a White Eagle goal and when they reach their goal they earn a reward (recorded on mini-whiteboard). We also have a weekly marble goal and reward (recorded on the mini-whiteboard).

Originally this cart was filled with 15 of the clear bins. I decided I wanted more storage options so I removed most of the clear bins and replaced them with smaller, green bins. The remaining clear bins are our group tool boxes. Having group tool boxes make distributing supplies incredibly easy! Right now our tool boxes have white boards, expo markers, mini-erasers, rulers, sticky notes, tape, and pens, but the supplies will change depending on unit. The green bins hold our reading center supplies and our community supplies (extra crayons, markers, tape, etc.).

I'm so excited about using magnetic, vertical centers this year! I thought vertical centers would provide interactive classroom decor while making certain centers easier to monitor. (Look out for an upcoming blog post; I'll let you know how they work!)

This is our classroom Maker Space! Students love visiting this section of our classroom to participate in STEM challenges or to create a project that they designed themselves! My husband trimmed a bin organizer so that it would fit under the back counter of the room. The most important part of a Maker Space is providing clear organization and easy access to supplies.  I love being able to store supplies vertically, it really maximizes the work space. 

Every teacher needs her space. This year I am using a storage system to hold reading group supplies, leveled books, and other teacher supplies. I also got a rolling cart to hold manipulatives and other daily supplies used for guided math and reading. I'm excited to be able to roll the cart up to my kidney table while I'm working with small groups of students! My picture board was created form an old crib frame. I wrapped material around the border and left the metal, cross-hatch center black. It is light-weight and easily hung with Command Hooks. Use clothespins to display all the special pictures your kiddos draw for you throughout the year!

Thanks for stopping by!

​As I reorganized my classroom library this year I realized how droopy my book bin labels had gotten! I like the idea of yarn - taping labels is always annoying...."Is it straight?", the hard-to-read shiney-ness, and gross goo if you ever try to remove the labels... Here is my solution: PIPE CLEANERS!

​Here's why I'm loving the pipe cleaners so far!

How?

Hope this helps your classroom set-up! :)