Room Tour

This Friday, my school had it's 50th Anniversary. We opened up our rooms for school tours to the public. This was a great opportunity to get my room looking nice and clean (you know, like it's not actually may and we don't just have three weeks of school left). So, I wiped everything down and taped down all the nametags that have been coming up since February and took this chance to get some good pictures of my classroom.
First, I'd like to say I've put a lot of work into the setup of my classroom. It's changed many times throughout the year as I discover what works best for me and my students. I finally feel like I've got it where I want it and I only plan to change a few things over the summer.
Here we go:

Here's a view from my desk. Click here to get my welcome banner for just $1! :)

Here's my guided reading table. I made the crate seats myself :) (with help from my husband and brother). I have a bucket of quiet headphones and pvc pipe "telephones" under the table. I have two clear shower caddies, one with math tools and one with reading tools.

Here's my word wall. Click here to purchase this from my Teachers pay Teachers store for only $1!!
You can also see that I keep my art drying rack underneath a table. I LOVE this rack for drying all of our wonderful art projects. Anyone who has ever lived without one before, like I did the for first half of the year, knows the struggle of trying to place drying artwork all over the room. I love keeping it under the table like that because space is precious in my classroom.

Here's my birthday board. I really loved this idea when I saw it on pinterest over the summer; however, I will not do this again next year and here's why: it is very difficult when you have a new student to take a whole new picture and include them. Also, it takes up a lot of room.

Here is my Math Corner. You can find my calendar here for just $1. Click here to get a combo for my days of the week, weather, and days in school for just $1. My district uses interwrite boards instead of Smartboards so it was about halfway through the year before I was able to create my own Interwrite calendar to be used on my interactive board. Now I love it and I can't imagine using anything else! Find it here.

Here are my book boxes for Daily 5. I got these from the Dollar Store for just $1. I write their names in wet erase vis-a-vis until they have a chance to create own their name tags. Also you can see our posted schedule. You can download the "personal best" sign for FREE by clicking here! I wish I knew who to give this adorable sign credit to, but I just found the link on pinterest.

Here you can see our weekly spelling words, our daily objectives, and our Daily 5 must do board. I plan to post about my Daily 5 routine later (I LOVE DAILY FIVE!).

Here is my desk. My students are often confused when I say "desk" because I am literally never over there unless my students are out of the room. I'm sure a lot of teachers feel this way. I used black curtains on my bookcases to hide my mess. :) I use magazine boxes to distribute papers I plan to use during the week (there's one for each day of the week). I have three file folders I could never live without: grade, file, and copy. I've seen some people use little three drawer organizers for this but I just don't have the space for one, so the files work best for me. Click here to download the "3 before me" sign for FREE from 3rd Grade Thoughts.

I love my writing area. I think it invites creativity for the kiddos. :) You can find the posters I used for "writers eye" from Miss Nelson for FREE by clicking here. The pencil poster can be found for FREE here, from Heather Parmelee. I absolutely love the "What Do Writer's Write?" poster from The Teacher Wife. Click here to download it for FREE. We also have a writing goals chart and at the beginning of the year my students determine what they want their writing goal to be and it can change throughout the school year. See the picture below for a close up. 

Here's the close up of our writing goals. 

Here is our math manipulative cabinet. The students keep their "tool kits" on top in zip lock baggies. I use the ones with zippers at the top because its hard for my students to get the regular ones zipped securely. I got the containers from Wal-Mart. 

Here is my Super Improvers board on my front door (again, space is precious--gotta use everything I can). I LOVE super improvers and my students love it as well! It focuses competition with the student against themselves rather than against the other students. Anytime my students improve at anything they get a sticker for their star. This is usually related to academics but can be tied to behavior as well. When they have ten stickers they move up a level; when this happens they get a new star and their name is written in the color of their new level (some teachers use different colored stars but unless you have an abundance of construction paper, this just worked better for me--plus I only had to cut a bunch of white stars). If someone gets to "Living Legend," they will get there name on my classroom wall FOR-EV-ER (I'm doing my best to channel "Sandlot," can you tell??). It's super easy and doesn't cost anything but REALLY motivates the kids, especially those on intervention. They can't wait to see if anyone is going to be a "Living Legend." 

I got my Super Improvers scale off of teacherspayteachers for free but unfortunately can't find the link anymore, :( sorry! 

***Super Improvers comes from the book Whole Brain Teaching and if you haven't read it, I HIGHLY recommend it.

Here are my class rules. They also come from Whole Brain Teaching and you can find them in here for FREE! Again, I LOVE Whole Brain Teaching. Number 5 is my favorite rule :). At first, I thought, hmmm... keep your dear teacher happy??? That doesn't sound like a student centered classroom. But this rule serves a much larger purpose. Have you ever told a student that hitting that other kid wasn't making a smart choice (rule #4) only to be told that it, in fact, WAS a smart choice because said student hit them FIRST? Well, you just hit them with rule #5! Hitting that student did NOT make your teacher happy. Rule #5 acts as a catch all so that you don't have to spend your precious time arguing with a student. Did I mention I LOVE these rules??? :)

Okay, I saved my favorite for last! :) Cue the choir bells. This is my library. I made all the pillow covers myself and tried to make this a really fun place for my students to be. They love it too! My library took me the longest out of everything in my classroom to get organized but it was definitely all worth it. My library labels are my best selling item from my store for just $1.50. Find them here. 

You can get my 3 Ways to Read a Book sign for FREE here.

And my I PICK sign is also FREE, just click here. 

So there you have it, I LOVE my classroom and I've put a LOT of work into getting just right. I spent most of my summer last year scouring pinterest for the best classroom ideas. I hope my classroom can serve as inspiration to someone whose planning out their first classroom! :)