Where it All Goes Down Wednesday!

I had new teacher orientation today where we played the M&M game (one fact about yourself for every M&M)...and 2 of my facts revolved around none other than blogging and TEACHER WEEK!  I now owe links to your fab blogs to several of my colleagues. :-)

Anyway, today's post is "Where it All Goes Down Wednesday," aka Classroom Tour! I love getting peeks (and ideas) from your classrooms. If you haven't already, link up at Blog Hoppin'!

Since I've only been in my room a couple of days it's definitely A Work in Progress.  I apologize for the cell phone pics but I wanted to document my first classroom's transformation. I'll take better ones once it's complete :-) My theme is: The Big Apple (think NYC/Broadway)!

This is what I walked into:

All of these pics I was standing in the doorway- so definitely small but I am determined to make it work with both table groups and carpet learning areas. I LOVE the shiny new Promethian Board- next generation SmartBoard. For an Inner City School getting this grant was huge- it's going to open up the World and so many resources to our kiddos.

Thanks to these lovely ladies- I am mostly moved in- we got a work out carrying my library and bookshelves up to the 3rd floor!

As of tonight- this is what you'll find in Room 302:

Right inside the door- It houses my fav quote by Nelson Mandela- the Let Your Light Shine Quote. The Statue of Liberty also fits into our Social Studies- of Early Immigrants.

 

Lockers and my number line. I think my Word Wall will go up above. I'm debating separating my Literacy Word Wall from Content Areas Words- any thoughts? To the right of the lockers (covering a few) are 2 huge cabinets. 1 is unlocked and houses student textbooks, supplies, games, etc. The other is lockable and where I will keep materials that I don't want out all the time.

 I arranged my desks in groups of 5. Once I get the rest of my desks I'll have 25- love that it worked out so even. :-) I have a freebie up of my table group jobs. You can find that here. I find it really helps facilitate group work. No pic of those because they are currently in line to be laminated (with a huge pile of other things). I set the desks up so that I can use either the white board to the right or the white board/smart board up front for direct instruction.

My desk/Guided Reading Area. If I had it my way I'd get rid of both and just use a rainbow/kidney table. However, due to the lack of elevator in my building they highly discourage moving big furniture in/out. Either way it's going to work! I have a set of shelves/bins behind  to store guided reading/math group materials and I can fit 5 chairs around the table. All that stuff on the window sill is from the teacher who left- next up on my to do list is to sort it!

You also get a peek at my carpet area which runs the front of the room. I'm not used to having the group area up front but with the Promethian board it is going to be great. I have a director's chair up there as well to go with the theme.

And last up for today- My Library- Easily my fav part of my classroom. I LOVE books. All the white magazine files (yet to be labeled) hold my Nonfiction collection sorted by topic for easy browsing. The buckets are labeled by Author, series, genre, buddy reads (my duplicate books), etc. I lucked out finding the 3 bookshelves on the right for a total of $4!

Behind the library you see my Stage Board....yet to be titled. I am laminating yellow construction paper now which will go up with paper clips so that I can mount student work easily- actually I like the kids to do it so they are in the practice of evaluating and choosing their best work to share.

So there we go- it's coming along well. Hope to put in a couple more days this week and then add final touches next week (our Professional Development Week). It's finally starting to feel like home- can't wait until I get the rest of it up and organized. Any questions? Email or Comment :-)