Back to School 2014

A new school year is quickly approaching! Teachers report back next Wednesday and our students' first day is on Friday! I have been busy getting my room ready over summer vacation because I have decided that after 7 years I was ready to clear out my jungle theme!

I have been putting in the hours turning this...

into this...

I bought a gray rug from Lowe's for $18 and five colors of duct wannabe duct tape. (I do not recommend buying the 3M tape that fakes you out and poses as duct tape. I have a feeling it won't make it past the first week.) I am really excited to have this rug because all the kids will know exactly where to sit!

This little corner is definitely where it's at! I have my birthday display above my reader's workshop board. I have my calendar display covering up my chalkboard (hope all the tape lasts!) which is next to my Lakeshore reading chart. This chart holds the reading strategy, word wall words, and spelling words. My students use this chart all the time!

I recovered my pink leopard chair and I can't wait to sit in this everyday!

I am so glad I moved my guided reading area across the room! I am now away from my giant bookshelf which always became the place to stuff/stack/hide things. Now I just have one shelf by me but it is full of my guided reading essentials. I also love the dry erase board behind my chair as well as my new blend posters! I have some word solving posters on the yellow board and I will be hanging up reading strategies above those soon!

This year I am moving to a form of the Daily 5 and I am so excited to start a writing center! The pink poster in the corner will have writing reminders and the ribbons on the cabinets will house monthly words for students to reference. Under the table (they're hard to see) are my new stools from Ikea!

A little Pinterest inspiration! I made these little pencils out of felt, ribbon, hot glue, and iron-on letters!

So many books! But I just love that bulletin board!

Excuse my eternally messy desk. I made that chevron pennant because even though my name is short, the Mrs. is the hard part! Since the kids write my name so much I thought it'd be handy to have.

My tissue poms and fabric pennants are what started this vision. I bought the tissue poms but I made the pennants! I love them!!

A quick close-up of my calendar.You can download the tally page, weather graph, and hundreds charts from my Google Drive.

My group leader frames! I bought 5 of these a while back and I found one more at Michael's today. It will have to do until my mom can bring me another one since Ikea is 2 hours away...and let's face it, a $1 frame isn't worth the drive, no matter how bad this will annoy me! Also, you can get these signs for free in my TPT shop here.

It's so bright and fun! I am loving the progress so far! I have a little more to do, mostly just straightening up but I am so happy to have finally decided to change themes!

My mom (who lives in California) was in town for three weeks earlier this summer and she helped me do a few things in my room. She created the chevron bulletin board which I LOVE! She also created the bulletin board in the hallway where I display student work. 

To create this masterpiece, we browsed Pinterest for some cute chalkboard welcome signs and a ribbon banner. Then we measured the width of my bulletin board and tore some black butcher paper to the correct size and taped it to my white board. Then we used my projector to shine it on the paper and my mom traced the welcome sign in chalk. She filled in the letters with different patterns. She did the same thing for the year banner at the top. My name, room number, grade, and pennants in the corners are all freehand drawings. I sprayed the chalk drawings with some hairspray to help hold it on all year. We'll see how that goes! Did I mention my mom was an art teacher for 15 years? Love when she can help in my room :)

I plan on getting everything ready hopefully this Friday because Tuesday night the first grade has "Meet the Teacher Night!"

The next thing on my list is a blog makeover! Hopefully I will get to that soon...but my to-do list is still kind of long!