Kindergarten Classroom Tour and Visual Plans

Oh my goodness. I have not been the best blogger these past couple of weeks. I really wanted to soak up EVERY.SINGLE. MOMENT of the summer with my kiddos before starting to teach in a new district and new grade. Speaking of a new grade...where has kindergarten been my whole teaching life? Last week was my first week with the kinder kiddos and I am in absolute LOVE!!! My 23 kinder kiddos are absolutely amazing, high energy, and cute as buttons. I had anticipated early nights of exhaustion, but much to my surprise I feel more energized! My kinder kiddos are like little sponges...picking-up quickly on routines and expectations. They have Whole Brain Teaching down pat!!!

I absolutely love the environment I created for my kiddos. I didn't go with a specific theme...more of a color theme of greens and black. So excuse all of the pictures, but it is the best away to show my new home away from home.

 The first day in my classroom (blank canvas)

 Looking in from the classroom door.

One of many summer trips to IKEA.

 I really wanted to stick with my furniture theme of black, but needed a big book shelf. And this worn down shelf was not going to do! So with a little chalkboard contact paper (did you know that they make CHALKBOARD contact paper?!?!?) and chalk marker I now have...

A matching black big book shelf. I'm in LOVE and cannot wait to change the chalk with each of the upcoming months.

   Here is the front of my room. I moved the large carpet to the front to create a meeting spot. The black skinny shelf holds all of our interactive math and poetry journals. They are placed in colored bins according to what color table my kiddos sit at. I am missing my Promethean board from my last classroom, but I am hoping to get one up on Donor's Choose soon!

Directly to the right of the whiteboard is my calendar and weather wall. All of the ten frames on the "How Many Days?" is our daily count of how many days we are in school. We add a sticker to it each day. 

To the left of the calendar wall is my focus wall. We will hang our focus letter, number, and sight words for the week. 

 Here is a view of our meeting spot from the back of the classroom. 

   To the left of the front whiteboard is my Math focus wall and centers. The yellow pocket charts hold our math vocabulary and center rotations. The magnetic whiteboard hanging below will be used for centers. I am in LOVE with my new black shelf from IKEA that I found in the clearance section for $20. One of my best finds of the summer. The two green tubs on top hold math books and the black baskets hold our math centers. Each center bin has a smaller black basket that holds the manipulative needed for the center. 

   Here is a closer look at how I house my math centers.Each bin has a number card on the outside that correspond to our rotation chart so my kiddos know which center to complete. I also have a matching label on the shelf so when my kiddos are cleaning up they know where to place everything. 

Matching shelf label. 

To the left of my math focus wall is our word wall. 

 Moving to the left again is my guided reading table and desk. I was SO EXCITED when I walked into my new classroom and did not have a teacher's desk. I never sit at a desk and think it is such a waste of space. 

   This is a look behind my guided reading table. The black and green shelves are from IKEA. The large black bins hold my supplies (paper clips, staples, tape, etc.) and the green bins will be used for each of my reading groups. The metal shelf holds my word work activities.

   Here is a look from the back of my reading table across to my classroom library...my FAVORITE part of the classroom. The two black tables and yellow stools are from IKEA. 

   Here is my classroom library revamped this year in new green bins to match my color theme. The skinny bins hold my nonfiction books and the large bins hold fiction books separated by theme. This window lets in very little light and is "foggy" from the inside for safety reasons.  

 Directly to the left of my guided reading table is the other half of my classroom library. The large black shelf in the corner holds my Lakeshore Learning Listening Center and Leapfrog Tags. 

   For some reason I did not snap a picture of my literacy center shelf from afar. But is is set-up similar to my math center bins. Each bin is labeled with a matching label on the shelf for easy clean-up for my kiddos. 

    Here is where my kiddos hang-up their jackets and backpacks. I have placed paper on the wall above to hold my kiddos work throughout the year. Clothespins are hot glued to the paper for easy hanging.

   To the left of my kiddos hangers for their belongings is my writing center. It is kind of bare now until we introduce the materials my kiddos will get to use. The yellow box holding the clipboards will hold our "Write the Room" center materials.

   I love that I have a large rectangle table that my writing center kiddos will be able to use. Behind the table is my writing vocabulary wall with cards from Deedee Wills August/September Writing Work Station pack. To the left of this picture is my pocket charts for my pocket chart center with my kiddos book boxes on my black rolling cart. 

   So there you have it! My week old home away from home. Below you can find my visual plans for the classroom this week. 

Have an amazing week!

TPT Back to School Sale

It's finally time for the annual TPT sale. EVERYTHING in my store is 20% off, plus and additional 8% with the code below. I have been hard at work putting the finishing touches on the new classroom. A classroom tour coming soon. Now I'm off to purchases everything in my cart. HAPPY SHOPPING!

Instant Interactive Listening Center & 4th of July Sale

   Happy 4th of July everyone! I know I have been away from the blogging world for awhile, but I am spending every second of my summer vacation lovin' up on my family, binge watching Game of Thrones with the hubs late at night, and planning for my new kindergarten classroom. Wait!!! Did I just say new classroom?!?!?!? I am so excited to announce that I will be teaching full-day kinder this upcoming fall. I can hardly contain myself these last couple of weeks planning on what my new classroom will look like. It's so exciting to have a blank canvas to transform for my new kiddos.
   I have just finished my QR Code Interactive Listening Center. This has been on my to-do list for weeks, but I am excited how they turned out. My kiddos this past year LOVED using QR codes for their Ancient Egypt project and I knew I needed to incorporate them more into my classroom. I have included 30 picture books with QR codes that have been filtered so no inappropriate material or ads are available for little fingers to click on. Each QR code is fitted onto a half-sheet so it is small enough to fit into any space you have. They can be printed and laminated to place on binder rings, in a small basket, or even in the inside cover of the picture book if you have it available. Why spend money on books and CDs that easily get scratched. Just print and READ! All you need is a QR reader downloaded onto your iPad or iPhone which are FREE in your app store. You can grab this interactive listening center in my store on sale for the weekend by clicking on the image below.

 

 

And because I love a sale the rest of my store is 20% off this weekend too! Happy 4th everyone!

It's Summer Time & SALE

  It's officially the start of summer vacation! YIPEE! I am so excited and thrilled to finally have some quality family time and begin to enjoy our new house. The last month has flown by, but with all of the commuting back and forth to school each day I have been so exhausted and too tired to really work on projects around our house. Until today when the hubs, boys, and I built a grilling patio with flower bed.

  As I relish in the fact that I don't need to set my alarm in the mornings for awhile, I reflect on all of the amazing last days my classroom kiddos and I had together. Here is a look at all of our hard work to transform our classroom into Ancient Egypt for our Walking Museum. We used my Ancient Egypt: Nonfiction Close Reading & Writing Research Unit for all the activities below.

  I made each of my kiddos a bag with their name written in hieroglyphics on the outside. (The numbers in the corner are for me to know which bag belongs to which kiddo) Inside each bag was a baggie of homemade dough and two toothpicks.

  

   My kiddos practiced how to write their name in hieroglyphics for several minutes using the alphabet code from my unit.

  I then placed all of the hieroglyphic bags all around my room and had my kiddos look for their name. I seriously planned for this to take 10-15 minutes, but all my kiddos found their bags within minutes! They were all so excited to open their bag and "carve" their name in hieroglyphics to make their own tablet. 

  I baked these tablets in my oven at home before our Walking Museum opened for the whole school. Here is how they looked on the day of our museum opening. 

  All the kiddos that came into our room got to match several of our bags hanging to the hieroglyphic tablets below. I know it is hard to see in the pictures, but our room included interactive QR codes that my kiddos were so excited to include on all of their projects and crafts. The QR codes on the bags would reveal the kiddos name it belonged to and the QR code on the information chart, next to the sink, gave a link to a YouTube video on Ancient hieroglyphics. We also had a table set up with hieroglyphic alphabet charts and blank paper and sand for kiddos to practice writing their own names in hieroglyphics. This was a favorite interactive activity...even for our 5th graders!

  And after learning about kings of Egypt my kiddos turned their black and white picture into their own pharaoh oil pastel painting. 

   Here is how we took these oil pastel paintings and turned them into columns inside of our pyramid museum room. 

  Hanging from the ceilings is our oil pastel pictures held together by twine and left over cheesecloth from our mummy that we made. You can see each of my kiddos research reports on their tables. Each final draft was laminated and bound with QR codes attached to the front cover. When the kiddos from the school scanned these QR codes they would be able to hear my kiddos reading the research book. This took extra time to complete, but myself and my classroom kiddos were so excited with the end result!

  Here are a couple more pictures from our Ancient Egypt unit. 

 This is a mummy mold of one of my kiddos that we had so much fun making at home. I almost had my classroom kiddos convinced that my son was actually inside of it! Both those QR codes include links to YouTube videos about mummification and amulets placed in the linen wrappings during mummification. 

  Behind our mummy you can see several canopic jars some of my kiddos made which hold the organs during the mummification process. 

  Our last day of school was filled with laughter, awards, recess, games, recess, sugar, recess, and a few goodbye tears. As we said our last goodbyes and had a huge hug fest my kiddos each got a little end of the year gift on their way out the door. 

 Each sand bucket had a label that said,

"Thanks for filling my bucket this year!"

  I alternated the yellow and blue sand buckets around the room. Each bucket (Michaels for .49 each) had bubbles, a bookmark, a summer vacation Black Lagoon book, and a picture of all of our classroom kiddos holding a sign of what they want to be when they grow up. Here is a look at the end of year gifts at each table around our room. 

    I have placed my entire TPT store on sale as my end of the year gift to all of my teacher friends. You can grab my Ancient Egypt unit or stock up on activities for back to school for next year. Now its time to toast in the summer with the hubs!!!

A Little SPRING in Your Step!

I have to do it and start today's posting with this...

   Yup! It's HUMP DAY! This was last week during my kiddos Spring break. My break is this week and it has been nothing near a break. Monday was our first official day out of our home of five years. I have mentioned before that we are having a new home built, but its not quite ready yet. Just a couple more weeks. In the mean time we are "vacationing" in my families town home. It has been so much fun for my kiddos the last couple of days. This morning though it was like driving with the Walking Dead in the backseat. Our new home is 45 minutes south from our old place and my families town home is an additional 20 minutes from there. So I had a couple of sleeping boys on the way to school and on the way home. Only 6 more weeks I keep telling them. Although, my eldest is trying to justify just staying home and homeschooling my youngest. I can just see them now swimming in the pool all day, making forts around the house, and eating as much junk food as they can find. Not so fast little kiddos...only 6 more weeks!
   I spent my day today at Barnes and Noble working on some Spring activities for the classroom and getting reacquainted with Starbucks. 5 hours and four drinks later (OMG how did that happen?) I have finally finished my Spring Math & Literacy centers and just in time to pick the kiddos up from school. Is it bad that I felt like I spent the day at the spa? The over-sized leather chair, soft music, no tattling or boogers, classroom antics, and overabundance of Starbucks put me into a Zen state of mind. Here is a look at some of the Math centers in my Spring pack.

 Skip Count by 2's

 Skip Count by 5's

 Skip Count by 10's

A Fraction of Rain

 Time for Tweets

 Springtime Measurements

 Bumblebee Fact Families

 Springtime Graphing 

 Buggy Odd & Even

    Here is my little bug testing out the activity hot off the presses before my classroom kiddos get to play next Monday. He was very impressed with himself that we could sort them all...even the 3 digit numbers!

   You can put a little "SPRING" in your step by picking these 9 Math centers and 6 Literacy centers from my TPT store by clicking on the image below. And because my mind is racing from my caffeine high I have a literacy center FREEBIE for you. "It's Raining Plurals" is just one of the activities you will find in my Spring pack. P.S. My April Common Core Aligned Math Journal is ready for your printing too. See what a little caffeine can help me accomplish??? It puts a little  huge SPRING in my step!