2014-15 Classroom

Well, it is hard to believe, but it is August. School will be starting in just a few short weeks. I have been busy vacationing, but I put the final touches on my classroom today. I am so excited to reveal my new bee themed classroom, inspired by Melanie at School Girl Style. 

Classroom door

This is the bulletin board outside my door. I had the cute yellow and white flowers ordered from Etsy. 

Custom made sign

I placed my cute custom made sign in the window. It is from Celebrate Homes and Families.

The kitchen and my "bee-havior" posters

Art table

I used the cute buckets from Target Dollar Zone to house supplies such as sharpened/dull pencils, staples, paperclips and birthday prizes.

Calendar in classroom library

Here is the calendar area in my classroom library. I found great poms at Walmart.com. Thanks to my daughter and her friend for fluffing and hanging the poms. The bee Pillow Pets were adorable and only $5 at AC Moore. The hamper has all of my big books.

Swanky reading chair with pillows
I tried to create a comfy reading area. I have a plush rug and this amazing chair from Walmart. I also covered a bunch of old throw pillows with some coordinating fabric. The area also features a bean bag chair that I purchased at a yard sale. I am calling this pillows and the others "BB" pillows: for bottoms and backsides only!

book baskets and shelves from Home Depot

My classroom library was so much work. I repainted the baskets and created the basket labels myself. I spent hours leveling the books to Fountas and Pinnell. The white and black baskets turned out okay, but the yellow baskets will need to be replaced when I can find some new ones. The  yellow paint did not cover  well.

Here are more book baskets....I had so many books I wasn't able to safely put the entire library on the Home Depot shelves. I love the curtains that my sister helped me make. Notice the yellow accents like the basket and the bee watering can...so adorable! I also picked up this Lego table and some games at a garage sale. 

In the front of the room, I created displays on both sides of my Promethean board. I hope it never breaks, because I didn't save a single chalkboard. I covered the boards with fade less black paper from Pacon. My word wall is on both the chalkboard and a bulletin board, so I will use magnets and push pins to display the words as needed. Notice the cute bulletin board for "BEE-utiful Work." I glued thumb tacks onto clothes pins to make displaying work a snap!
Beside the computers, there are yellow and white baskets from Target's dollar zone. I have labeled one from each table. These containers will house folders and such. Also, each table has a cute yellow caddy loaded with pencils, erasers,  crayons, scissors and glue ready to rock on day one.

word wall from TPT

The math board has three great products from Really Good Stuff that I purchased so long ago, but never really used: the 100 day gumball machine, the gator poster for inequalities, and the graphing question of the day set.

My friend Stephanie hooked me up with this cool hanging file organizer. I just added some yellow hanging files and cute labels. This will house centers for math, phonics, and reading. I also have an adorable basket with magnetic numbers stored here.  I used the small bulletin board to hang my Kid Crowns.

If you recall from the tour before, my room really doesn't have much wall space. I used the cupboards as displays. Here (sorry it is blurry) I have my worker bees helper chart, my WOW chart (words of the week), and a transportation chart. 

Inside the WOW cupboard, I have my brag tags. The kids will get to wear their necklaces every Friday! I am so excited to try this method of classroom management in conjunction with Class Do-Jo. 

guided reading/math table Here I have used the built in storage for my mailboxes and my guided reading and math area. My friend Laura gave my the mailboxes and my husband spray painted them black. I picked up the white organizer on clearance at AC Moore. 

The remaining cabinets have short vowel families and reading strategies. This picture is also too blurry to note, but the yellow and white labels are the students' names for their cubby spot. 

My listening center slides into the cupboard, when not in use! I love my open space!

 I made these cute book bees based on a Pinterest idea. Kids will place their bees in the basket that the book they want to read belongs. They simply return the  book to their bee and voila. I also have labels on books and baskets as a back up plan.

If you looked at my earlier photos, there was a huge closet that the former teacher used for storage. I decided to make it my office. Look at how cute it is!

Here is the great bulletin board that my daughter covered with pillow scraps and awesome duct tape.

I purchased this awesome hanging file folder from Mardel.

It was featured on a popular post on Pinterest. The black desk accents were a gift from the teacher who took my former job! Thanks, Tricia!

Probably, the most unattractive items in my new space were the filing cabinet and the lone free standing shelf! I covered both with fade less black and border. They look cute now!

I couldn't resist buying the giant black and white letters. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at my classroom. I worked very hard to make the space bright, colorful, and attractive. I tried to apply the lesson learned from School Girl Style. I can't wait for my students to come back from vacation and begin our learning adventure. 

Room Progress

Well, I have spent about a week in my classroom so far. It is  looking fabulous, but there is still much to do. My plans to turn the closet into an office have been completed. The custodians even installed a real light switch so that I wouldn't have to use that weird key thing. My bulletin boards are papered with uniform fade less black, borders are doubled, pom-poms are hanging. I have organized the materials left for me by the former teacher. Now the main task that remains is to organize the classroom library. I have spent hours cataloging books...over ten banker boxes. All of the books are in piles according to Fountas and Pinnell Guided Reading levels. I just need to organize and label the baskets, but that will all happen after my ten days at the most magical place on earth.  Here are some of the projects that I have been working on for my bee-u-tiful room! 

 This is the cool bulletin board made with curtain and pillow scraps for my office. 

My daughter thought it would be cute to hang a sign for queen bee on my office door, so we fashioned this one from ribbon, scrapbook paper, felt stickers, a wooden accent and some cute ribbon.

I don't know what these are for yet, but they are cute! I originally had these buckets for picking sticks for reading at the junior high. I simply painted and jazzed them up for my new space.  

I purchased this great laundry basket at AC Moore. I couldn't resist the mini pillow pets. 

Classroom Design Day 1

Well, I was able to go into school today to begin working on my room for the new school year. When I arrived I snapped a few pictures of the bare bones. 

My room was formerly a special education room, so it has some extras like a kitchen, restroom and a large, awkward closet. However, since I tend to be a glass half full type of girl, I decided that the closet would make an awesome office thereby creating more kid space in the room proper. The photo above  is the basic office. Wait until you see what I have planned for this ugly shelf. 

The tiled area is the future location for my classroom library and swanky reading chair!

The front of the room....not sure yet. Maybe this is where I will put my small group reading/math instruction area. 

The kitchen area, restroom, and cubbies are in the back of the room. I spent a few hours in the room today mostly working on the office space. Tomorrow's plan is to build shelves and create the rough classroom library area, as well as, to cover all of the bulletin boards with Pacon fadeless black paper that I picked up today at A.C. Moore for around $7.00.  This evening, I used a Pinterest to create the adorable pencil buckets. 

Sticker Box

Check out this cute sticker box that I made from an up cycled card box like the ones you can purchase at Costco. First, I used scrapbook paper and my  "Bee Happy" clip art from DJ Inkers to decorate the outside of the box. These items were decoupaged on to the box. Then I added cute polka dot ribbon with a glue gun and the cute flower accent that I picked up at Michaels.

To organize the stickers inside the box, I simply traced around one of the card dividers to create a new template. I cut the new dividers out of black card stock and used these snazzy little scrapbook accents to label the divider with a month or topic. 

I think that this box is adorable, and it will fit in perfectly with my yellow, black, and white polka dot/bee theme for my new classroom!

Impatient!

Well, it is now July 3rd,and I have heard from a friend that my classroom will probably be available sometime next week. I can't wait to show before and after pictures! Today I continued to work on  leveling books and creating room decor. I plan to use paper fans purchased from Oriental Trading as hanging signs for centers and teams. 

Leveling Books

I have begun to unpack the boxes of books that have been in my attic for seven years. It is exciting finding little gems, books purchased but simply forgotten, but the task of labeling the books with guided reading levels is a bit tedious. So far, I have labeled my boxes for fall and winter. I am thankful for Book Wizard from Scholastic which has helped me to identify the guided reading level on most of the books. I am also using AR Book Finder to search for grade levels when Book Wizard isn't helpful.I am excited about the book baskets and cute labels that I created.

Based on the the design principles that I learned from Melanie at School Girl Style I have decided to spray paint my book basket in the colors of my design theme: yellow, white and black. I am using Krylon Fusion for plastic. The black and white worked really well, but the yellow has needed numerous coats. My husband has been amazing with the spray painting (Thanks, honey!). I think I should have just ordered new yellow baskets from Really Good Stuff because of the cost of the yellow spay paint.

Room Design

I have been waiting for seven years to be able to bid  back into a primary position after switching districts twice! I am finally back in first grade for the 2014-2015 school year.

I have been so inspired  by School Girl Style to create an engaging and cohesive room design. I will be using the tips that I learned from reading Melanie's book to create a yellow, white,  and black  inspired room with bumblebee accents. 

Check out the amazing chair that I purchased from Wal-mart for my reading area!