Welcome!

Welcome to my class!

Let's take a tour!

This is the view from inside our "front door".

This is our chandelier!  I'm so excited to finally be able to light it up!  Last year's kiddos wanted a disco ball... so this was our compromise!  However, we had to wait to light it up until the electric was connected in the ceiling for our  new Promethean board!

Right inside our door is a bookshelf where we keep our family photos!  It's just waiting for photos from home from this year's class!

Next to our bookshelf is our temporary sign is station.  Each student has a fish and when they enter our room each morning, they make their daily lunch choice.  

We have 29 kinders in our class!  Our tables are pretty full.  We have either 6 or 8 children at each table.  Over the years, I have found this is just too many kids for each to have an individual supply box.  So... we share!  This is our supply holder!  After seeing another teacher using these in her room, I had to make them for us!  They are lazy susan spinners from Ikea.  I took small tomato paste cans (instead of saving up, I got impatient and just went to Walmart.  They were only 20 cents each!) and painted them to correspond with our crayon colors.  I added larger cans for glue and pencils.  In the middle is a bin for trash.  Again, with 29 kinders in our room we have to get creative!  Everyone going to the trash can at the same time just does not work!  The cans are attached to the spinner with velcro.  I also put modpodge all over everything to seal it!  They work really well and keep everything nicely organized!

This is our library area!  I change the books out quite often.  Coming soon are boxes with books sorted according to reading levels!  As we get started with guided reading, we will be able to find books that are perfect for us!

This is our station area where we keep all of our tubs of materials for literacy and math stations!  It's also where we keep extra papers, scrap paper, and pencils!

You can also kind of see my seashells on the window and my shell wind chine! Can you tell I like the beach?!?

This is our guided reading nook!  It's hard to see but the lamp is filled with shells (which the kids are always curious about HOW they got in there!) and there is a pretty, sheer curtain that helps hide the cinderblock walls!

Here are some pics of our word wall and our painting area!  The wall is eagerly awaiting our names and all the words we are going to be learning this year!  

 This is my desk area.  I really need to do something with that ugly filing cabinet!  I have lots of pictures of my family here.  I also have pics of past classes!  The kids love to see and ask questions about who all those people are!

This our behavior chart!  Every day we start on green because we are ready to learn!  If we make good choices throughout the day, we can move our clips up to blue, purple, and pink!  If we are above green at the end of the day, we get a sticker!  Once we earn five stickers, we can choose a reward.  More on that later!  If we are having trouble following directions, we have to move our clips down.  Yellow is a warning.  Orange says teacher choice and usually means missing out on some recess or free choice.  Red says parent contact or office and may mean a phone call home.  I really hope we don't have anyone on orange or red!  What I love about this system is that there is ALWAYS the ability to move up!  Even if you make a few mistakes, you can turn your day around by making good choices!

These are our chair pockets.  This is where we keep our papers and FISH folders!  This is something new for me and I'm really liking them so far!  The reason we are using them is this....

The wall of ick.  We were supposed to have gotten cubbies built into our classroom over the summer.  That did not happen.  We are still getting them.... we just don't have them yet.  Because of that, I have had to make it work the best I can with what I've got!  

We are using shelving units that I used to keep supplies in as makeshift cubbies.  That's where the kids put their bookbags right now.  All of my supplies that used to go in those shelving units... and will one day go into the storage above the cubbies... are sitting in those boxes.  UGH.  It's a mess.  I hate how it looks but we just don't have another option.  Good thing it's temporary!  Cubbies SHOULD arrive by the end of the month.  My fingers and toes are crossed!

In front of the boxes, we have white boards for the kids to use and a cute little organizer for our fabric cubes!  We will be keeping our reading folders and books in the the cubes.  They will be our "book boxes".  I'm excited to start using these really soon!  

These are just some pretty flowers that we had out as decoration!  I like to have real plants and flowers in the room for the children to explore.  Soon we will be able to add some "fall stuff"!

Environment is very important to me!  This is the place that the children and I will be spending the majority of our days together!  I try to create an environment that is calming and peaceful and lends itself to active learning.  I want our environment to help us learn... not hinder us!  I want it to be a place where the children feel safe and comfortable!

I hope you enjoyed the tour!  Please stop by and see us!