Teacher Week: My Classroom Digs

Hey all! Welcome to Day 2 of Blog Hoppin’s Teacher Week! Today is all about WHERE you teach- we want to see your classroom digs!

I don’t know about you but my classroom was always my “home away from home.” Mostly because I would sometimes spend more hours IN my classroom than at home.

There is nothing like setting up a classroom for a brand new school year! The decorations, the organization, the new supplies- oh my!

Truth: I don’t have a classroom this year. Gosh, that’s hard to say! Some of you may know that I made the difficult decision to take a year off from teaching to work on my graphics and move closer to family. So today I am excited to share with you my classroom from last year when I taught my second grade kiddos.

Welp, come on in! Have a look around and then I'll do some close ups for you!

My theme has kind of changed over the past three years, but I had too much stuff many really important things in specific colors that I never strayed far from my lime green and blue. For this classroom, I added in the beloved chalkboard elements with a SUPER CUTE decor pack from Hope King: Brights and Stripes. Here are some of the labels from her pack!

These are my guided reading baskets. The caddies are from Big Lots and I just wove a ribbon around them and glued laminated versions of these numbers over the spot where the ribbon met in the front. 

I *think* the caddies on the top are from Target and the ones in the cubbies are for each of my kiddos. The bins on the top are completely empty for the time being. I made them ahead of time so I could have bins for each of my tables to distribute and prep materials. It makes it so much easier to count out materials or put a stack of post-its, notecards, highlighters, etc. in each and then the table is responsible for their own bin. 

The cubbie bins are for the kiddos to put their "Read to Self" books in. Sometimes the kiddos would bring their baskets around the room, other times they just picked out of them. It helped me see which books my students were picking on their own (rather than having them stuffed in their desk where I couldn't see what they were choosing!). I also was able to slip in "suggestion" books with little post-it notes on them for different kiddos. It was like "book mail."

This is my writing process board and the kids. loved. it. I hot glued flat thumbtacks to four pizza pans from the Dollar Tree and gave each kid a banana magnet with their name on it. 

The cute calendar numbers are from Hope's pack! I just used little velcro squares to put them on an existing calendar that I had- super easy to switch for each month! Below the calendar is my *modified* Daily Five schedule. My school had some specific requirements for our guided reading blocks, so I modified as best I could. I wrote the names of the kids in each *color* group on the left. Each group met with me for 30 minutes. The rotations that have two squares next to them (ex. Word Work, Read to Self) were for 15 minutes each. 

A great Daily Five Freebie pack can be found {HERE}. That is where I snatched the little rotation logos :)

I loved, LOVED my math manipulative shelves! The black shelves are from Walmart and the perfect size for these Dollar Tree bins. I liked to let my students pick what manipulatives they wanted to use whenever possible, so there is a little stack of mini bins in the top left corner for them to take some back to their seats. I used a fantastic math pack from my friend Amy Lemons to help my kiddos understand how to use math manipultiaves purposefully and other great math intro lessons. You have to check it out {HERE}. Perfect for the first week!

Moving on to one of my favorite spots in the room! My jungle library!

The natural color shelves are also from Walmart and more lime green and blue bins from the good 'ol Dollar Tree! 

These are jumbo letters my mom covered with fabric for me and I *love* them! They are light-weight and I just used 3M velcros to secure them above the bulletin board ledge.

Yes, my panda has a decorative flower headband that coordinates with my color scheme. :)

I had a lot of dead counter space on the other side of this enormous air conditioner/heater, so I hung a shower curtain between it and the wall and had LOTS of priceless storage space. My organization strategy is HIDING THINGS! Which is why when I did pack of my classroom and move, I found 40+ boxes of stuff HIDING in my room. Holy moly goodness!

This was the smartest thing I did all year- which may or may not be saying much! These are laminated pictures from my Colorful Monkey clipart set glued onto clothespins. I just used a big 'ol glob of sticky tack to stick the clothespins to the wall. It made switching out students work easy peezy! They stuck up all year. 

I LOVE BOWS. Specifically polka dot bows. So, I glued bows on everything I could think of, and if you ask me, the children learned better because of them :) 

The subway art on the left is another beauty from Hope King's store: Desire to Inspire Subway Art.

Last, but not least! My jumbo monkey with the most fashionable, coordinating outfits in the whole school! 

Here are a couple of freebies that I used to decorate in my room if you have a similar theme and want to use them too! Click to snatch them up!

Here are some other coordinating clipart sets I used in my decorations, too!

And a FREEBIE!

 

Thanks for sticking around for the marathon of a tour! Make sure you link up and show us your classrooms! 

Krista :) 

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