Finally!

I finally spent a good amount of time in my classroom today with the help of my good friend Jill (thanks Jill, you rock!) and I am very pleased with how it looks so far. I still have lots to do, but I am feeling much better than I was when I first saw the room. Yes, it's big and there is a lot of empty wall space that needs to look inviting for the little kiddos who are getting their first taste of school, but it now looks pretty fun and inviting! If I were 5, I would feel right at home! The beach theme is not totally evident everywhere you look. In fact, if you didn't know that I intended to have a beach theme, you might not even catch it, but there are cute little touches here and there that give it a little pizazz! I don't think my room looks like the other Kinder rooms, but I am really happy with what I have chosen to do and I know I will feel happy and at home in my space. A classroom is a home away from home--in fact, we spend more time in our classrooms each day than we do in our homes--so it needs to feel just right!

What we did today:

• retrieved all my teaching stuff from our storage unit
• rearranged furniture to create distinct areas
• put up paper and borders for main focus wall/calendar wall and word wall
• hung balloon lanterns and beach banner
• laminated
• sorted through all the stuff that was left in the room and organized it

Some photos:

I didn't think all the stuff was going to fit in my new Yaris, but it did!

This will be the whole group instruction area. Obviously there will be some learning aids on the blue paper, but we didn't get that far today..I am thinking of dividing the large wall into a few different sections for Fast Track Phonics, Calendar, and my attendance check in pails. 

Word Wall

Close up of the pops

Storage shelves to the right of the carpet area. The rainbow buckets are empty still, but I just set them out to see how it looks. There is so much room to store things, I can't possibly fill it all up! We have TVs to go along with our Fast Track Phonics program because there is a video element.

Free choice/Play area. There are shelves on both sides of this mat with bins of materials the kids can use during choice time. I am not planning on too much choice time, but kids may get 10 minutes while I work with another small group on literacy activities and then they will switch.

I put away the containers that were in the room and sorted through the materials, getting rid of stuff I don't want. I want the kids to be able to have smaller quantities of materials to take out and to understand that they can use one box at a time. I will label both sides with a picture of what kind of material is inside. I prefer to have everything look uniform rather than in all different containers that are old and gross looking.

Kitchen area. This is on the other side of the alphabet puzzle carpet. I want to use a lot of labeling in this area and environmental print by including empty food containers/boxes. Again, they won't have a ton of time to play here, but it will be a choice when I am rotating groups and kiddos are not working with me. 

View from the alphabet puzzle mat.

I still want to make a large train that goes all along the wall to the right of where I was standing when I took this photo (ala Jessica Meacham's idea to go along with the book Freight Train), but we worked all day and just couldn't get to everything. I am really excited to get that done and I think it will be super cute. I just wish I had an overhead so I didn't have to free draw the train. I found some great pictures online that I want to copy and hopefully that will be a success.

Still to come:

• Focus Wall/Calendar setup
• Welcome to Kindergarten banner above whiteboard
• Rainbow Train
• Attendance beach pails with starfish and shells
• Figure out beach ball lanterns (another sketchy item from Oriental Trading, yet the order was worth it just for the balloon lanterns which I LOVE)
• Purchase a pocket chart for my daily schedule cards
• Come Hang With Us in Kindergarten bulletin board with bathing suits and swim trunks
• Get some type of stand for big books
• Convince someone to give me a kidney table to replace my round table
• And then there's trying to figure out how to teach Kindergartners as well!!!

And now, I am heading to my bed to watch Project Runway--if I don't fall asleep!