Classroom Pictures!

Welp, here it is! Pictures of my room and some of the things I've done. 

Here is the room standing from the door.

You'll notice, I gave each table a different colored pencil/crayon/whatever box. I super glued table numbers that coordinated with each box.

I was going to get the subject labels I've seen my friends use in their room but they didn't have them when I went to Mardel. So today, I made some from owl labels I found on Teachers Pay Teachers here with a fun font on the label.

I thought I wasn't going to have enough books, and now I have almost filled two bookshelves!! Thanks to Helen for the nice bookshelf on the right.

Above the shelves, I put a simple classroom rules poster. I wanted to keep it simple but make it so many things fall under each rule.

Here's a little more progress on my bulletin board, all it's missing are the owls with the student names now.

This is my desk area. I filled the space with the Owl Stars Study Habits. This is also where I put my calendar and my two lovely gifts. (I forgot to take a close up of the one Joy made me so I'll try and remember to do that tomorrow.)

I'm going to be doing Reading Centers so this is the chart I'm going to use to move the groups around. I actually used owls from a freebie graphic on Teachers Pay Teachers here. I just made sure to use different colors for each center. You can't really see it well, but the legend is hanging underneath.

The idea for my baskets for papers come from my good friend Amber.

Then I have my check in system. Each owl is numbered (Also from the Owl Stars collection) and hot glued on a craft stick. I labeled two buckets from Target either hot or cold lunch so all they have to do it move their stick to let me know they're there for the day and what lunch they'll be having.

This is the job chart from Owl Stars. All I did was hot glue small clothespins to each job so I can clip the owl with their name underneath each job. I put the owls on a ring next to the chart.

A friend told me about this pin, and then she was so nice as to order me one since I wouldn't be in town! I didn't put the word pencils on it because I was out of letters so this will have to do. The bucket next to it will be for broken pencils.

Last, but not least, I decorated my cabinets with the fabulous stickers Carrie gave me! I also put my birthday poster in this space as well.

Hope you can get a good feel for my room! Have a fantastic day!

Bulletin Boards and Craft Sticks

I've been working like a dog in my classroom. (Photos of the whole room to come soon!) I think I finally got everything loaded into my room. I was afraid at the beginning of the summer that I wouldn't have enough books, because a lot of mine were for younger students. Well, I had to put another bookshelf to accommodate all my books today! That's on top of the one I put in my room last week. There is very little room for new books! I think it's safe to say my classroom library is pretty full.

Today I also started on my bulletin board. This thing is a pain in the butt to get to because it's over the computer station which is built into the wall. With a little sweat and climbing, I made a good dent on my bulletin board! The only thing I have to add are a couple clouds, some flowers, and of course the owls with all the students names on them (don't have a class list yet, so will post a second photo as soon as those are up).

I also need to add the letters I cut out, "Look Whoo's in 4th Grade"

Now, I have always loved the idea of putting students' names on craft sticks to pull out to answer questions instead of having hand raising. It encourages all to listen because they don't know who will get called on each time. Well, I found on Pinterest that you should paint them two separate colors so you can turn them over in the can and not pull them out again in the same activity! Wonderful idea so I painted my sticks tonight. Again, no names yet but you get the idea.

There's my work to share for the day! Expect to see more as my room gets done!

Thanks for checking in! - Jen

Just a few starter things...

Well I haven't been able to get in my room as much as I would have liked so far this week. This is due to the fact that my sister had to have surgery Monday and since I live with her at the moment, I'm her nurse. While I've been sitting at home, I've been working on open house stuff.

First up is my parent handbook. I've been seeing a lot of stuff on Pinterest but some looked a little daunting and I just don't know how much I want to tackle my first year. After a google search, I found this download in a PowerPoint. 

I changed it up of course but the outline was really helpful! I just downloaded a bunch of new fonts as well so I got to play with both. Here is the final product:

I used a large paper cutter and the result was that instill had some dotted lines on the bottom. I plan to clean each one up as I staple them together (my stapler of course in my classroom). I hope they are colorful enough that the parents will at least browse them. They aren't overly detailed. 

I also wanted to put in some things I made over the summer. Here are the pillows I created for my reading area (which is yet to be determined in my room but I'll find a use for these either way).

I made six different ones out of different fabrics. I based my pattern on a little pillow I had found and sketched it out so these are mostly my design. 

I also saw the paper lantern owls on Pinterest here. Here are a couple of mine. 

After making these I found some polka dot ones at Dollar Tree and made a few more.

One last thing for this post and I'm done! I bought this owl pattern on etsy. Instead of using the same one, I bought scrapbook paper and made a whole bunch and each one is totally unique. 

These made my hands hurt, but gosh they are cute!! My plan for them is to make a bulletin board with a tree and place each owl with each students name on in on the board with the title "Look Whoo's in 4th Grade". 

That's it for today! Stay tuned as I get in my room!

Well here goes my first year (and my first post)!!

Well, I'm getting ready to move in 4 days! It's going to be a difficult transition because I've spent my entire life in Wichita, and now I'm moving to another town. It's nice that I'm not so far away, and I'm ready for this adventure! So the move is Saturday and I plan to start working on my classroom on Monday! I'm going to spend two weeks in there getting all my stuff ready. I will soon have up pictures of all the things I've created and put together for my room. I've pretty much spent every free moment this summer laminating and making owl themed stuff for my room. My plan for this blog is to put up what I'm doing in my room and whether it's an epic success or an epic fail! I also hope to get connected with other teachers to get advice and just create an open community to share ideas! Thanks for checking out my blog, I hope you're not bored to tears!