My Classroom

I have been working hard to get my classroom in order.  Last year I moved from 2nd grade to Pre-K and things just whent anywhere I could find a hole.  There were things that were already in the room that I had no idea I even had.  My "craft cabinet" was packed with paint, glitter, and anything else you can think of scattered on every shelf.  This year, I am making my room mine.  Let's face it, we teachers LIVE in our classroom most of the year.  So I have been organizing craft suplies, my library and every cabinet/shelf in the room.  I have purged many things.  Here are some pictures of my classroom.

Originally this shelf housed puzzles and books.  All of these items in these boxes wer in my "craft cabinet" shoved into every corner and spread out on all the shelves.  Nothing was together, there was absolutely no method to the madness.

I must confess:  This idea was not an original of mine....I have to say thank you to Caitlin from Kindergarten Smiles.

 

This is Caitlin's shelf.

Our "Family Room" I am going to try to use a cuter name than "the carpet" :o)

Yes, I have a desk. Sorry, I just can't get rid of my space.

I am going to use a word wall this year.  We will start with their names, color words, shape words, number words, etc.

I would love to tell you who made the word wall cards for me but it was a special order for a good reason.
If you see this and want the credit let me know ;-)
P.S. If "She" comments on my blog you will all hear me scream with excitement. :o)

My writing center is still not complete.  I may need a small shelf to store the items.
The cards on the wall are from the Moffatt Girls

Did you notice the big yellow barrel sitting there? Yea, I thought you did.  This is an emergency kit just in case there is an earthquake.  Since my classroom is the last one on the end it got selected to store it. JOY!

My library and student work display.

Student tables.

Small group table

My chair was a plain ole ugly wood chair last year.  I had to give it a face lift.
Yes. I painted it myself.  I'm working on a stool now to put by the sink.  I'll show you that in a couple of days.

The opening to the left leads to the classroom next door.  The door to the right is a closet.  It's full of second grade materials/decorations that I can't part with yet.  Just as soon as I do, I will get moved again. I did get rid of some things that I haven't used in 5 years.  I figured it was time.

I painted this chair for my students last year.  It is used as an incentive.
 If someone is being extra good they get to sit in it for the day.

Word work materials.  Another stolen idea.
I got this idea from Marsha at A Differentiated Kindergarten.



Student cubbies waiting for the kids' names to be added to them.

If you notice the brown cabinet to the left, that was my craft cabinet.  It still holds the paint but they are all on one shelf and organized by type and color.  It also has puzzles and I was lucky to house the Preschool diecuts and cutter that takes up a large portion of my cabinet.  (I think someone else should have to find some where to store that thing since I have to have that big yellow tub.  Don't you think so too?  No one asked us, did they? :-(  The red cabinet stores tons of Lakeshore learning games.

This is my clip chart.  

You can get one too from Teaching Oasis.  They have all sorts of themed items.  The labels that were on the blue tubs at the begining of this post came from there too.

And lastly, my poor little listening center. I am just not sure what to do with it.
If you have any ideas please comment.

 So that's my room.  90% done and ready for kids next Thursday.  Alright... Back to work for me.  I still haven't get my schedule the way I want it and I just got my class list so I have to get the kids' names on some things.

The Daily 5 Chapter 6

I'm a little late on this one.  I had intended to take my book with me on vacation and link up while I was there and when I got to the cabin and went to get my book to read on the back deck I was sad to see that I forgot the book. So here goes....better late than never. Right?

Thanks to Crystal at Kreative in Kinder and Little Miss. Kindergarten.

 

1. Experimenting with words for learning and practicing a spelling pattern (brainstorm a list of ways you can do this)

I plan to start with letter recognition gradually introducing ways that we can work on our sight words in the same ways. I will start with letter matching games where kids can practice matching uppercase with lowercase letters.  I will use:

magnetic letters

white boards

Play Dough with stamps or where they can roll the dough to make letters

letter tiles

stamps

file folder games

and anything else I come across with on Pinterest ;)

2. Memorize high frequency words (How often do you introduce new words? Do your students have their own lists of words that they can work on? How will you keep track of words that they already know?

Being a Pre-K teacher I have not started HFW till around the 4th quarter.  However, this year another Pre-K teacher and I have decided to start earlier.  I will start with their names on the word wall and all number, color and shape words at first.  I have seen some great ideas where teachers have put words into groups and used sticker books where kids get stickers when they learn words and celebrate as a class when everyone in the class learns a list.  I would like to use these ideas in my room.

3. Generalize spelling patterns (brainstorm a list of ways you can do this).

At the beginning of the year I will be working on basic sight words.  Later in the year I will work on word families and use those spelling patterns. I will not get into phonemes and blends.

4. Adding to our knowledge and curiosity of unique and interesting words. (What is the best way to do this?)

As far as nonsense words go, I have not experimented with these at all and wouldn't even know where to begin.  Since I am just starting with sight words I think I want to focus on that this year and perfect that before trying something else.

Other things to think about:

· What materials do I already have?

I already have the materials that I listed above in question one.  I also have boxes/baskets to store them in and a shelf that I plan to keep everything on.

What materials would I like to get?

I wold love to have some more baskets/bins from Really Good Stuff to make everything uniform but for now I will use my hodge podge of storage containers since I have already bought new baskets for my library and book bins for my kids.

How will I store them?

I will use boxes/baskets to store each activity. Stamps, magnetic letters and tiles will have Ziploc bags to hold them so that students can grab a bag and take it to their work space.

· Where will students work?

Students will be able to work wherever they like.  I will likely encourage students to work at their seats for some activities but I want to keep with the theme of giving them choice. 

Writing

As I read the writing portion of this chapter I was faced with some ideas completely opposite of what I had originally visioned writing looking like in my room.  Since my students will not have any prior knowledge of writing or letters, much less words I have to consider what they are capable of.  As the year starts, I was to have the kids working on the mechanics of writing.  I have a specific are that I intend on using for writing that will be the writing center.  In the writing center students will have a choice of what they want to do.  Students will be able to work on letters, sight words or writing their names or friends' names.  I will have paper, slates, magnetic boards, and white boards for students to write on. Once students have the mechanics down and we have worked on sounding out words I will have them start drawing pictures and labeling them.

P.S. I typed this on my lap top which seems to have a mind of its own.  It tends to jump around and I wind up typing or deleting in places that I don't intend to.  So if I have a ton of errors here.... sorry!