Classroom Activities This Week

This week we are having fun getting ready for our holiday break. We have been working on writing about our Holly Days!!! Here in picture you will see the holly leaves with students writing about their holiday with their families and their traditions. This is always a cute display that I have my students to create each year.

Next, my students did a GREAT job creating their winter snowman pictures. They are hanging in our hallway for all to see. Students will be writing a story in class to go along with their picture. 

I think they turned out fabulous. I love snowman. SO any chance I get to make something with them I do!!! This activity was in our ART center. My students always look forward to what I have each week for them to create in my ART center.

So being that I LOVE SNOWMAN. I have my door as one. A few years ago, I made my door into a snowman and the ladies on my grade level wanted one too. So this year this is my door. Each teacher on my grade level has one just like it in a different color.
Mine is LIME GREEN cause that is my favorite color.

Let me know what you think.

This is such a busy time for year. I want to wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Getting Ready For First Day Of School

As many of you are doing as I am, getting your classroom ready for the first day of school. I always get excited at this time of year. Planning my classroom for my newest group of kiddos. This year is even more exciting since I got to move back to 2nd grade.

I will post a few pictures of my classroom and will display more as the days go and first day of school comes and goes.

Here are pictures of my classroom before I painted!!!!

 old paint and board

Now for a look at my room with a FRESH NEW PAINT JOB!!! I love the LIME GREEN board. Painting the classroom gives it new life. I love how it looks.

This is much better!!!!!

I use two shades of blue in my classroom. The front and back walls are the darker shade of blue with the two side walls being the lighter blue. I think it turned out great. Cant see in this picture but I even repainted the black baseboards too!!!

Here you will see some must haves I had to get for my room. I got the ORANGE lamp. Got the BLUE broom that matches one of the borders in my classroom and hallway. The chevron fabric is my curtains that I am putting in my classroom. My overall theme is the DOTS ON TURQUOISE!!!

Here is the start of my LIME GREEN bulletin board that I love!! I have my calendar on one side and the side you cant see has my Job chart. I will be adding my Daily 5 in the middle.

So there you can see that my room is coming along. I am very pleased with the progress. Come back to see more of my room and get some ideas for yours.

Before you go come check out this great FREEBIE at my TpT store.

I am using this for student to house their ipad work until completed to turn in. 

New Classroom Pictures

I have been hard at work getting my classroom ready for this school year. Here is a picture of my Daily 5 board. I think that it turned out really well.

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to find these amazing Daily 5 posters with cute kids for my board.

I am excited about using Daily 5 in my classroom this year. I have tons of stuff pinned on my Daily 5 board on pinterest if you are looking for resources. 

This image is of my reading area with my books sorted by AR level on the left book shelf and Genre on right book shelf. I love books and you can see that I have loads of them. I even did a good weeding of books this summer.

Students will be able to choose books for their book caddies easily from this wide selection.  I have books for all levels from 0.9 to 7.5 in my 3rd grade classroom.

I love how this title for my Reading board for displaying student work turned out. Great work will be displayed here as we create and sharing amazing ideas about reading. 

I will add more pictures as the next few days come and go with the start of school. We had Open House this past Friday and I had so many complements on my classroom and how great it looked. I had all but one student to show out of 22. I think that is amazing. Monday, August 27th is our first day with the kiddos.

I hope that you find resources and classroom design that can inspire you in your room.

Classroom Tour

Here are pictures of my classroom. I hope you can see them since I am not a professional photographer. I always love seeing pictures of other classrooms, so I hope you find some ideas that will help you with your class.

This picture shows my calendar and focus wall. The student of the day is in charge of calendar duties everyday. My principal loves to see student work hanging up in our rooms and I do too.

This is some of my computers and you can see part of my SMARTboard. Students use this area for computer center and blogging.

This is my reading nook. Students use this area for READING center and during SSR time. My books are leveled based on AR. The awesome baskets are from Really Good Stuff.

This is my white board and SMARTboard area. Students hang their bookbags on the hooks I have located under the white board. A great way to utilize space. I love not having bookbags on the floor.

This is the back wall of my classroom. I have my BAM tubs on the cart and centers located back in this area at the two lime green tables. Student work hangs on the back wall.

This picture shows my guided reading table along with our stained glass butterflies that the students made. We make a different one for each month or holiday. They are so pretty. This picture didn't turn out very well because of the sun shining in.

Well I guess you can tell that I have primary colors in my room, with a touch of pizazz with the lime green tables and curtains. I am wanting to change up my room but I do not want to paint. I will be working on a new theme over the summer and when I change, I will post pictures to show the transformation.

Ocean Unit

We have had a grand time learning about the ocean and all of the creatures in it. My students would create an ocean creatures that would go along with the stories each day and then would add them to their own personal ocean that was displayed on their desks. We read Mister Seahorse, A House for a Hermit Crab, One Tiny Turtle, Whales and Dolphins, and Coral Reef.

After the unit students got to take their own oceans home. The students had a blast creating them. I hope this will be something you will do with your students. I usually make one huge one to hang in the hallway but I decided on doing it this way. The students LOVE IT!!!!