A Long Hiatus and How I Decorated My Classroom

Who would have thunk (is this really a word?) that my 4th year would be WAY more intense and stressful than my first year in 1st grade!?!  Well, I am here to tell you it is tough.  I am not sure if it's because our district changes things so much, if my expectations are too high for myself and my students, or if I have just taken on to darn much.  Whichever it is, I need it to slow down.  Like yesterday!  :-)

I had intended on blogging very regularly but due to unforeseen stress this year I fell off of the bandwagon very quickly.  Ha!  I am going to try to catch up with a series of posts over winter break.

Let Me Start With My Classroom Set-up This Year...

When I took these photos, the room was still a work in progress.  It was mostly complete but I still had some housekeeping and organizing to do.  This is a pano view from my desk.

Here are some individual photos of different areas in the room.

First up is the front of the room.  On the board is the "Lend A Hand" Station.  We are a Title I school and with donations from the community we are able to provide the students with all of the school supplies they "need" during the year.  Parents can choose a hand from my set-up and donate things to my classroom that I wish to have.  It alleviates a very small amount of the money that I spend out of pocket every yea, but it helps.  Things they can donate are dry erase markers, tissues, plastic zippy bags, extra glue sticks, markers, color pencils, extra crayons, extra scissors, loos leaf paper, copy paper, page protectors, binders, pencil boxes (like the ones on the table) and so much more!

The alphabet line at the top was a new addition this year.  I bought the Original Formation Letter Cards, but found out the day after I paid to have these printed and laminated, that I had to have italic formation.  So I got crafty and cut up my old line which happened to be italic formation and adhered them to the printouts and then got them laminated.  It all worked out.  However, you can buy them in italic formation too.

This is a view of the classroom entrance with the teacher cart to the left"ish" side.  The workstation that controls the doc cam, SmartBoard, and movie player.  I also keep things in a tray that I use on a regular basis like math tools, writing utensils, paper clips, crayons, etc.

This is a view of my small group center - teacher center.  Also on the bookshelf is my classroom library (sans basket tags - they weren't ready yet).  There is also a number line above the boards. My students use as much as I had hoped they would.  On the dry erase board there are schedule signs that I will use to guide our daily schedule.

On the desks are their pencil boxes, group boxes, and welcome folders.  Inside the welcome folders I include a letter to the students and parents, wish list for supplies, student info form, a transportation form, lunch forms, dawn-to-dusk (school based daycare) forms, August calendar, first months words lists, and much more.

Behind the closed door is a bathroom!!

The computer station!!  I LOVE that we are so fortunate to have this station in every single K-2 classroom (and their are 24 classrooms).  I have 6 computers in my classroom which is perfect for small group centers.

Also, those paintings are done by yours truly!  ;-)

I will try my very best to post some updated photos soon.  While it has stayed predominately the same, it has changed a little bit.  I don't really have a specific theme in my room.  I just LOVE color and bright images so that's how I roll.

*I have linked to all of the products that I used in my classroom.  You will find them throughout the post.