Classroom Reveal!

Here is my big reveal this year!  This year I decided to do an ocean theme.  It was really fun to put it all together.  I wish I could claim all originality, but this wouldn't be possible without Pinterest!  I don't know what I did before without it :)  Here is where my 22 kiddos will come each day this year :)  I am so excited!

It's hard to believe it all started like this:

                                      

And was transformed to this in only a week and a half!

This is the welcome board in the hall.  I created the whales using shapes in powerpoint.  I was really happy with how they turned out.

How cute are these little otters for our class helper area?!

A shot of the classroom.  I am starting with four tables because I like symmetry, but I am sure this will turn into five tables shortly.

I am trying out Class Dojo this year!  Has anyone had any success using it?  Any pointers?  I think it will be much more manageable than my old behavior management and I am excited to introduce it to the kids tomorrow.  We are going to color in avatars and create speech bubbles for them with classroom rules.

I love the birthday board.  Last year, I did the same thing with super heroes, but NEVER put their pictures in as the faces!  This year that is number one on my list - take their pictures to go in each boat.

The crabs in the tens frame are so cute!

I broke up my board this year by subjects.  We have a lot more that needs to go into lesson plans this year so I am hoping to incorporate them in each section.  For example, in addition to learning targets, we need to add vocabulary.  These will kind of serve as Anchor Charts, but on the board.  I hope I can keep up with it!

This will be the Word Work area.  I am also trying Daily Five this year.  I always had about 9 centers for kids to go to, but this year I have consolidated them into the Daily Five.  I am excited to try this.  I hope it results with me working smarter and not harder.

A tank of writing ideas!  I can't wait to introduce all of these fun writing projects to my kiddos.

Our word wall!

In my Read to Self area, I put all of my theme books (which use to be a separate theme center), my Author of the Month center (Kevin Henkes) and then the classroom library.  I hope it works out.

Not really classroom decor, but for open house/bts night every year, I always have my parents/students sort their supplies.  This year I even had them put what they needed to keep in their desk away.  This saved me so much time.  Next year, I am adding a step though - unwrapping everything!  Do you know how long it takes to take all of the glue sticks out of their packaging?  I hope the parents won't mind doing that themselves next year :)

Tomorrow is the first day!  Good luck to everyone else starting tomorrow :)

Happy Teaching!  Rest Up!

Annie