Oh Snap! Reading Is Fun!

This is my door decoration for the winter months.  I have such a short time with my little kiddos and we spend our time reading and playing academic games that there is no time to do student art work.

So I had to be a bit creative with my door decoration.  My kids love taking their pictures so it was fun.  I just enlarged some clipart from Graphics from the Pond and added their sweet pictures.  

This is a easy idea but I cannot tell you how much joy the kiddos have finding their picture each time they come down to my room.  They enjoy showing their friends where they are and talking about the different book characters the children are holding.  

My Classroom 2017

**Note:  I did receive some classroom decorations from Oriental Trading Learn 365 in exchange for this post.  However how I used the materials in my classroom were up to me and all thoughts about the products are my opinions.  

I decided to pick items from the Eric Carle Theme for my classroom because my classroom is the reading resource room and I the that that theme went perfect with the room.  The first thing I picked was this adorable Welcome Banner.  

OT Learn 365

It was a bit wide for my door, I have a narrow door,  so I cut it apart(sorry about that) and put it together with some other bulletin board cut outs that I owned to create a door decoration.   I really like how cheery my door is.  I  had several compliments on it from parents and teachers at the open house.

I am by no means finished in my room.  When you have a new room it takes a long time to get all the little finishing touches done.  However, I have what I need to get the school year started in place.  

You will see throughout the room some colorful and inspirational Eric Carle posters.  I love that O.T. used the book characters and added some quotes about learning and being yourself to them. The posters I did not use in my classroom I am going to donate to the school library.  We have a new librarian and I am sure she will welcome the posters.  

This is the best I could do to give you a full view of the room I will be working in this year.   

Most of the room is taken up with the guided reading materials for the primary grades.  I am responsible for keeping the books in order.  

The previous resource teacher, my friend, had a great system in place and I plan to continue her system.  

This is sort of my teacher station.  I some of my resource books here, organization drawers with all supplies, a file drawer with activities and a mini refrigerator with water. I used some of the magnetic pieces from the Very Hungry Caterpillar Retelling pack I received to decorate the front of the refrigerator.  Two students were so excited to see them there during the open house. (I could not find it on their site to link it for you.)   

This is going to be my reference wall.  I hope to hang up more anchor charts for the children to look at when they struggle with a concept as the year goes on.  

The big open wall space here I am planning on hanging a large pocket chart.  This back shelf is for student supplies and easy to grab learning supplies.  

These upper storage shelves is where I will keep all my learning games.  I hope to add more games throughout the year.  

Thanks for visiting my classroom and many thanks to Oriental Trading for the wonderful decorations.  

My New Room and a little Update

This fall I start my new position at my same school as the Primary Resource Teacher.  Basically I am doing the same thing as last year however I now have a little room to work in, instead of the hallway or the principal's conference room. He was very patience and kind to share his space, however sometimes my little four years would get a bit loud when they were excited about learning the alphabet.  

I am now responsible for keeping track of all the guided reading materials as well.  

The room is nothing exciting.  It is down in the basement next to the library.  I'm  sure it was the library storage room at one time but our school is so strapped for space that in recent years this is where our resource teacher carved out a place for herself.  

There are no windows and the light seems a bit limited.  However I am just happy to have a space because when there were a lot of meetings and speech going on in the school, I had to work in the hallways or cafeteria.  Generally not a problem but I always needed to carry everything I needed around with me.  I felt like a bag person.

I am excited to make this my new home.  I hope I will be here for a long time so I want to make this space as pleasant as possible.  Also I want the children to be excited to come to this space to learn.

 I know I can not buy everything right away, however I have a must have list for this year:

• carpet for floor
• two or three lamps
• teaching easel
• one bookcase
• Computer to log books/modernize a checkout system for teachers

I cannot start at my school until Thursday because I have so many cute grand-babies to babysit for so I am trying to do little projects at home. 

One of the things I received in my back to school box from Oriental Trading was some Eric Carle stickers.  The theme for my resource room is going to be Eric Carle.  Anyways I took these colorful square stickers I found in the Target $1 section and the Eric Carle stickers from O.T. and labeled my teacher carousel. 

Before

After

I am very excited to share the Eric Carle bookmarks and pencils that came in the box as well.  I go through so many bookmarks throughout the year.  I think the kids say they need them and then share with their other friends in the classroom.  I don't care....if it keeps them excited about reading....great!   

Pencils are always a problem when I work with kids.  They always come out to me with unsharpen, broken, and worse yet...half eaten pencils.  Sharing a new pencil with them is like giving them a mini reward.  Bookmarks, pencils and erasers are the types of things I reward children with so I am thankful to Oriental Trading for providing me with those wonderful gifts.  

Classroom Subway Art

I purchased this at Target a few weeks ago for my home and it inspired me to create something similar for my classroom.  

I found the frame at Michaels and I created the subway art on my computer.  I made two versions just in case you do not work at a religious school.

I just took the jpg to Office Max/Depot and told them what size I wanted and they printed and laminated it for me.  Lucky for me I had a coupon.  I am pretty sure you can copy the print you want just by right clicking on it.  

Enjoy :)

Class Picture

Each year I like to display a picture of my class.  I have quite a collection in the classroom. 

 I finally am getting around to putting my class picture in a frame; I am a bit behind this year. 

When I went to Michaels, I could only find a plain white picture frame.

So when I got home I looked around my craft room to see what I had to jazz it up a bit and this is what I came up with.

What do you think?

Reading Center Banner

What is your favorite book character?  This is such a hard question for me I love so many books and so many characters.  Olivia, Piggy and Gerald, Tacky, Junie B. Jones, Mouse, Frog and Toad, Oh don’t forget Pigeon, Little Critter, Corduroy, just to name a few.

Anyways, this week I am teaching my little ones about characters.  I had them bring for show and tell their favorite books with their favorite characters.

Here is their collection:

Then the children drew a picture of their favorite character and we cut them out and glued them on two banners I picked up at Target.

Now we have an adorable banner in our reading center. 

Welcome To My Classroom

Classroom Tour 2012

Welcome to my classroom.  I went with the owl theme again this year.  I just couldn’t pack away my owls they are so cute. 

Here is my classroom doorway.  My students from last year made them to surprise my new class. 

 I put the bench in the hallway.  It is home to the recess balls.

As you walk in my room, on the right is the computer center and on the left is an ipad center.  

I have another ipad center as well.

The Rainbow Carpet is right in front of the smartboard.  This is my large group area. 

I have my teacher table in the corner with all my teacher things. 

The students keep their things inside these lockers.  Above the lockers is my word wall.  

The children can easily see this information from their tables.

This is the building center and my storage area is above.

Right now this is the house area, this area will change throughout the year.

The writing center is in the corner of the room.

I also have the home reading and level check out books on a cart over here.

Across from the writing center is the science center.

This is the religion table.  I am waiting for the children to decorate the big black space.

 The math center is next on the tour.  I added this board with some math vocabulary on it for the children. 

Behind the math center is the reading center, I am excited to see the children reading in here.

In the center of the room is the word center with lots of activities.

That’s my room, now I need some children.  Only six more days until they come to school. J