Saturday 3 September 2011

Welcome to the Garden!

I am so in love with my new classroom. There is so much storage. There is a whole row of windows that let in tons of light. I think it is going to be a great place for my class to learn and have fun in!

This is my ADORABLE (if I do say so myself) bulletin board outside my room. Names on the bugs have been smudged for safety reasons.


Here is a view of my room from the door. I'm still missing a few student desks and my desk nameplates haven't arrived in the mail yet, but other than that the room is almost ready to go!


To the right of the door is these four big doors that hide our cubbies and jacket hooks. Love that I don't have to see all that mess! Up top is our birthday bulletin board.


Inside the doors is storage for the kids AND more storage for me. Love it!


On one of the doors is "Our 5 Bees Promise". When I saw this idea on First Grader... at Last I knew it would fit well with my classroom theme. The bees are SOOOO cute. I also love her Best "Beehaviour" Catalogue for some great rewards to go with it. I might make one of those later on this year.


On another one of the doors is our "Garden of Good Manners". This mini bulletin board was from Scholar's Choice (Canadian store... sorry!)


In the corner is my art supply closet. I am a bit of an organization freak. I love love LOVE labels. I spent a good part of my summer making labels for everything. I really like how they all turned out.


At the back of my room, I have one small bulletin board and three large ones over top of the windows. The small one has our "Spotlight Author" of the month. In September we are starting with Kevin Henkes. Can't wait to share his books with my little ones.


Next will be our Daily 5 board where I will keep our anchor charts up all year. I am so excited to fully try out the Daily 5 this year. Last year I tried some of it out, along with Reader's and Writer's Workshop, with my fourth graders. This will be a new experience for me! (Along with many others this year!)


Our first theme is going to be "All About Me". I think we are going to do some Me Gylphs to hang on the wall here. More details to come!


And the third bulletin board on that wall is the "Word Garden". I made the snails and leaves with my cricut (love that machine) and the printed out my own word wall cards. So far I put up number words, shapes and colours. We will also be putting up our names and the Grade 1 Dolch sight words as we learn them.

*Freebie Alert* If you're interested in the word wall cards (numbers, colours, shapes, Dolch words, and blank template) click here!


Underneath the windows are short shelving units which I am using to house my classroom library. I have a leveled section and a theme/series/author section. I was totally inspired by the awesome Kristen over at Ladybug's Teacher Files. I used her idea of putting a sticker on the cover of the book that matches the label on the basket. These stickers wrap around the spine of the book and on the back they have my name, grade, and the level of the book. Check out her blog to see how she sets up her library! Truly inspiring. This year she made cute round labels for her baskets!





I had these rainbow magazine holders already, so I thought they would make good book boxes. Hopefully they last the year and next year I can invest in some good plastic ones from Really Good Stuff.


Here is our math calendar wall and carpet area.


Next is our writing centre. Another idea stolen from an amazing blog. This tweet was inspired by Leslie Ann over at Life in First Grade. I found her tweet idea here.


Here is a view of the front of the room. I got a projector installed over the summer. No SMARTBoard yet, but maybe one day!


And moving right along, is the "What's the buzz?" bulletin board. This has our daily schedule posted. Loved Mrs. Carroll's schedule cards over at The First Grade Parade. This is one of my all time favourite blogs. Love her ideas! I used hers and made a few more of mine to fit my needs. Also on this board is our Daily 5 schedule and the Bug of the Day (my helper).


And lastly, right beside the door is our "How do we get home?" pocket chart and "Snail Mail" mailboxes. I also have my ring of Line Up Songs which were inspired again by First Grader... at Last.




And that concludes the tour! Thanks for stopping by. I realize this post is waaaaaaaaaay too long, but there was just too much to share! :)

6 comments:

  1. I love your class.

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  2. Great ideas. Love the schedule cards. Would love a copy of your O'Canada and Announcements. Thanks, Paula paulamooney@cogeco.ca

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    1. Hi, Paula. I'll send you the O'Canada card when I get home on Sunday! Thanks for stopping by my blog! :)

      Amanda

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  3. Hi, Amanda. I was wondering what the font was that you used for your library and art labeling cards. I had library cards for my book baskets, but I like yours better! I wanted to make a few new ones, though, for baskets I already had sorted. Could you either let me know the font name or send me a copy of the template you used to design them? Any help would be greatly appreciated! My email is sedderkd@gmail.com. Thank you, Krista.

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  4. Hi Amanda, Could you please tell me if you sell or where you purchased your flying into 1st grade bugs and flowers from? Thanks Bree :)

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    1. I think I just got them from my local teaching store. You can find the bugs on Amazon here and the flowers here.

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