Ready Or Not Here It Comes!

I officially went back to work this week, and the kiddos are coming on Tuesday!  I have to tell you, I am a little more than nervous.  Which I don't get cause I feel like if I have been teaching for 18+ years, I should not be nervous.  At least I have not had the bizarre nightmares yet.  You know the ones I am talking about. 

However,  I am teaching a new grade, learning a new curriculum, we have a new principal, I am attempting the Daily 5 and CAFE in the classroom, I am the chairperson of our Positive Behavior Support (PBS) team and we are in our first or implementation year, and so on.  I am sure you get the picture.

Today, I finished my classroom to the best of my ability.  I am ready for the kids to come.  Supplies are on the desks, my word search is ready to go, I have my procedures ready to teach, and my Daily 5 lesson is good to go along with a picture book to read aloud.

I am giving myself permission to not think about school for the weekend and I am going to go in Tuesday morning good to go, at least for Tuesday morning.  I will worry about the rest of the week on Tuesday afternoon.

For the rest of you who go back to school with your children next week, enjoy your last weekend of freedom and good luck as you go forth and teach next week!!!

Here are some pics of my classroom.  I hope you enjoy them.  I am excited.  If I have used your ideas in my room a million thanks.  You have made my classroom look awesome.  At this point I have borrowed from so many of you, I have lost track.  If I have used your idea let me know who you are so I can give you a shout-out!



This is the view from my desk.  There is my Elmo that I cannot and I mean cannot live without.



This is the view from my door.  That is my new (at least new to me) area run for my kiddos to sit on for group instruction.



This is the front of my in class library.  I still need to label and organize my book bins.



I saw this as a "Use Your Writing Glasses" pocket chart.  I am going to turn it into a "Write like a Star" pocket chart to fit my Hollywood theme. I love the big pink sunglasses that I created.    I even glued some bling at the top corners of the frames. This will get more added to it as we do some mini-lessons for writing.




This is my desk.  This is where I will meet with small groups of students.  They also love to sit in my desk for a reward.

 


This is my popcorn word wall that I got from The Teacher Wife blog.  I think it looks great!

 



Here is my word work stuff.





This is my "Rock Star" behavior clip chart.  We have a school-wide chart.  We do not move up just down.  So I had to modify this a bit.  Thank you Abby from Inspired Apple.





Here is my CAFE wall and my Daily 5 choices.  These I actully created myself.


 



I love the clock numbers.  These I have gotten somewhere.  I can't remember where.  I think it will be great for my 3rd graders.

Here is my Room! (The Unfinished Version)

I hated to miss out on all of the fun because my room is not yet complete, so I am giving you a sneak peek at my thought process.  I have been working in my room for days, but it really has a long way to go. 

The first three picture are what my room looked like when I walked in to my classroom last week.  Look how shiny my floors are.  There is nothing a beautiful as freshly waxed floors just waiting to be walked on for the first time of the new school year.  I tip-toe around in my bare feet just to keep it that way.  Just kidding, but I do try and not scuff it up while I am rearranging my room.  The maintenance workers want us to put a map of our classroom before we leave for the summer.  I can't do that.  I look for inspiration all summer long, and then I am able to look at my room and arrange it for the new school year once I get there.




 

The view from the back of my room.

The view from my doorway.



 

View of the back of my room.



The next three pictures are what I have accomplished so far.  I spend a lot of time contemplating where I want everything.  Unfortunately I was not able to keep all of my stuff.  I have had to streamline to accommodate my desire to Daily 5 and CAFE this year.  Also, I have moved down to 3rd grade so I am really changing up my room.  I was given a huge rug from a coworker coming into my building and one was left in the room to put in my classroom.  I am so excited to get all of my children up on that rug for whole group instruction.  My kiddos will be able to use the computers for listen to reading.  I also have my tape recorder the for the children to listen to books as well.

My computer area.

I am going with  a Hollywood theme this year.  Sorry the top of the board got cut off.  This is going to be where the students will check-in for their lunch, sign-out to go to the bathroom, exchange their pencils, and get paper.  I will put some clever movie type saying here. 

This will be my supply/check-in area.

 This will be where the students will get the materials for Word Work.  I have stamps and pads, pipe cleaners, reading rods for Making Words, magnetic letters, pencils boxes with sand and clay.  On the top in the pop corn container there is write on wipe off handwriting cards, mini magnetic erasers, fine point expo markers, and pointers for working with the word wall.

This is where I plan on keeping my Work Work materials.

 I suffer from last-minute-itis, so next week when it has to be done, I will post pictures of my completed room.

Thanks for stopping by and don't forget to check out Blog Hoppin' to see all of the rest of the awesome classrooms out there.  There are so many talented, hard-working, and awesome teachers out there.  I am glad to be to be surrounded by  so many people who make me proud to say, "We are teachers and this is what we do!"