Welcome to My Classroom

I'm pretty obsessed with my door this year. Last year my lightning bolt was a hot mess, but I never got around to changing. I was quite impressed with the one I made this year. And the pink, yellow and green, along with the owl just make me smile. I love the bright colors.

A look into my room from my desk.

 My side board

 My collage of collages aka my attempt to cover up my HUGE white wall with something that I don't have to change all year.

 My brand new calculators all numbered and organized along with my front board with more bright signs.

 Hall passes...last year I didn't have these so I had to hand write a pass anytime a student needed to go somewhere. It's so nice to just have them grab this and go. Foam door hangers from Wal-Mart..yes please!

My cougar calendar for the first month of school!

 My student work wall...I considered re-doing this this year because you can't really see the yellow, but I ran out of time and these letters are already up and aren't falling. So, maybe next year...

I did make a cool sign for my student work section in the hall, but forgot to take a picture of it. I'll show you that next week...if I can remember to take the camera back to school. :)

And now for my favorite part of my classroom this year. This system has made my life SO MUCH EASIER in the classroom.

Every seat has a bin underneath that is numbered. The numbers help them put the desks back in the right spot after we do any type of group work.

 Each row has colored electrical tape beside it. Yes, the color of the numbers on the bins correspond with the tape...I would love to take credit for that, but I just got lucky. I had already numbered the bins when a fellow teacher mentioned the tape and he just happened to have the colors I needed. This helps keeps my desks in rows...I'm OCD and got SO tired of straightening my rows or pushing them back last year. Now, students know where and in what order desks go based on their bin color and number with guidance from the tape on getting them back in straight rows.

 My notebook system...In each bin are the notebooks for the students who sit in that seat throughout the day along with a pair of scissors and a glue stick. Not having to pass out supplies for an activity saves SO much time and not having to collect them at the end of each class helps A TON!

 Students glued their expectations and rubric into their notebook the first week of school.

They fill in their table of contents first thing when they come in with date, title, and page number.

 Then, they label their page for the day with the same information and begin their warm-up. When I'm ready to start notes, all they have to do is draw a line and we're ready!

We've made one foldable so far and glueing it into the notebook helped with them keeping up with it and referring back to it really easy.

I'm pretty proud and excited at how well it is working this year. I highly suggest some SERIOUS organization to help a classroom run smoothly. I'm super organized on my own, but am just now figuring out the HUGE importance of it in the classroom. Learning what works best takes time and observing other people...all of these ideas were pulled from other teachers and put together in a way that works in my classroom, but getting it figured out has made the start to my year SO much better!