For the past 8 years I have had a Dr. Seuss theme. Don't get me wrong, I am still completely OBSESSED with Dr. Seuss but I thought it was time for a change. Since peace signs are super popular right now, I thought this would be cute. I have spent hours upon hours recreating the wheel to match my theme including this blog. I have somewhat of an OCD nature when it comes to my environment & where I teach the children but it all came together & looks amazing I might add! The kids absolutely love it & all my former students are envious but they love the room as well! Here are some pictures of our new Peace-themed classroom.
Each student has a clip board where their work will proudly be displayed. The folders are where your child will hand in their homework. The signs above the clip boards are all of our specials.
Our peace themed word wall, AR library & reading buddies.
Our groovy window which is one of my favorite parts of my room.
The rainbow colored shelves and the table next to it will be the writing center. I will have all sorts of "fun" writing utensils for them to write with. The binders on top are going to be their writing binders.
This is our "Peace Reading Retreat". My mom was generous enough to purchase a peace bean bag pod to sit at the bottom (not pictured).
This table will be utilized for small groups during RTI & Daily Five.
Our bucket filler board. We are bucket fillers, are you?
Our groovy classroom behavior clip chart. Everyone starts on green, right in the middle, & can stay on green, move up but hopefully not down.
Our classroom promise to ourselves and each other.
This is where we choose our lunch.
Mrs. Dillard's work station.
A view of our classroom library. All the blue bins contain AR book levels 0.8-2.9. The red bins contain AR book levels 3.0-& up. Mrs. Dillard spends a ton of time @ garage sales in the summer & gladly accepts AR book donations to build our library.
Each student has a shoe box container to hold all of their extra school supplies.
Our groovy job board. We have 20 jobs & 23 students. Most of the time your child will have a job but there will obviously be some weeks that they don't. Jobs will rotate every Monday. Classroom jobs will make your child more responsible & give them a sense of accomplishment & importance after finishing their jobs.
Our Daily 5 board to be used this year during our 90 minute reading block.
The very popular birthday chair. Your child will proudly sit in this on his or her birthday....ALL DAY! This is a huge deal to them :)
This is about the only Dr. Seuss thing left. This is our classroom author's chair.
Our warm fuzzies. If you haven't heard about them you will. Your child will earn rewards as they collect warm fuzzies for making good choices. Once we start taking AR tests they will earn 1 big fuzzy for every AR test they pass.
Our Classroom Bucket is used for whole classroom management. If we get a compliment from another teacher for hallway behavior we get a nugget. If they are working quietly they gain nuggets. If the opposite happens then I take away nuggets. When our bucket gets full we have a classroom celebration.
On the night before first grade.......Mrs. Dillard can finally sleep....It's DONE! I will post more pictures as I get the permission slips back.
We've been in school for 9 days now. I think we are all still adjusting but the kids are happy & happy to be at school. Here are some pictures from the first few weeks.
In these photos we are practicing the Read to Self part of Daily Five & we are building our stamina.
Here are some pictures of some of us doing our morning routine.
The next few pictures are the kids practicing "Read to Self". We have been taught there are 3 ways to read a book: 1. Read the pictures 2. Read the words 3. Retell a previously read story
This next part melts my heart :o) Mrs. Jones & I did a one of the first Daily Five lessons on building our stamina. We compared yoga to read to self & how we build stamina for these exercises from day to day. The kids really got into it! It was the cutest thing ever!
This was our first time reading from our hardcover reading book. We "popcorn" read the book together in groups. They really enjoyed this!
Here is some more reading pics. We built up our stamina enough to start reading with our reading buddies (stuffed animals). We also got to pick "good fit" books for our book bins.
As an incentive to keep our desk clean, we have "desk check" on Fridays. This ensure there are no papers in their desks & we all learn to keep organized. When the student's get their desk checked by the "desk inspector" they get a free "10 minutes" of play time on Friday. Mrs. Dillard also popped in Justin Beiber & they were shocked that I actually had the cd ;o)
