A Classroom in Progress....

Well it’s officially almost that time. Going back to school time. I’ve made a few trips to my room to start sorting out what’s what. Here’s what it looked like when I first arrived back from break:

And here’s some In-progress (read: NOT DONE!) pictures:

My welcome wreath

This is my library area. My Job board is on the right; calendar, morning message, and 100th day chart are in the middle, and rules are on the right. Immediately to the right of this picture is the door. I used Erica Bohrer's Library labels to label all my books and the baskets they go in, so that when kids take them out during Daily 5, they know where they go back. The chairs under the easel are an option for kids to sit in while reading during daily 5. The baskets under the book shelves will be filled with reading tools.

The listening posters are from First Grade Fever, the rule posters are from Inspired By Kindergarten. 

Immediately to the left of the door are my backpack hooks and where I will display "5 star writing" I still have to hang my posters that tell the qualifications for 5 star writing above them. 

Next to the hooks is my check in board. This is where I have displayed our fine arts schedule, Daily Schedule cards from Caitlyn Clabby, and Standards posters from Deanna Jump. This is also where my kids drop off their folders and agendas, and pick up their wake-up work. 

Next to that small board is my long front board. Student of the month posters will be on either side (where the blue is) and up above are my alphabet posters and color posters. I just love how those dogs turned out! You can find similar ones in my TPT store. 

To the right of that is my Daily 5 work board. You can probably tell by the picture that instead of having colored reading groups each kid will be assigned to a litter: beagles, bull dogs, poodles & pugs! Then there is my shape posters, and take home bags. I officially decided on SkippyjonJones as our classroom mascot since he is a cat who thinks he is a dog! Erica Bohrer had the perfect kit for him! The backpack is from Kohls. Inside are 2 books, a journal and a skippyjon plush from Kohls. You can view kohls back to school page HERE. Enter UBLOGTENfor 10% off until October 24th!

Under my palm tree is my Listen to reading center. It is still missing another chair. The second one is just like the first one, but aqua instead of lime. The top shelf of the little cart holds the cd players and headphones, the bottom shelf holds the books & cds. 

We're now to the back of the room where you see my small group table with my crate seats. I've filled the crate seats with all kinds of learning games and small group materials. Behind my desk is my treasure chest and behavior to bark about catalog, a wooden organizer that holds each day's papers, my toolbox I made, and some shelves.

 To the right of that is my popcorn word wall and my word work table. The colorful cart holds all the different word work options. 

Next to the table is my bookshelf with the curtain I made, and on top our brag dog tags! My principal loved this idea so much she bought little key chain ones to use as incentives from her! 

This is the only picture where you can see my buntings, but they are hanging from all the windows! 

Next to the curtained shelf is the bathroom, and then my work on writing station. 

Next to that is the door to the kitchen and my office, which I've used to hang my behavior chart. Are you in the dog house?? 

To the right of that goes my computers, which were removed from the room because someone has been breaking into our school. 

Above the computers are my birthday bones. 

I'm not allowed to hang table signs from the ceiling, so my tables have colored dogs stuck to them with contact paper. 

Here are my cans I made for my pointers and my birthday balloons, which are not yet done. 

Hanging right next to my door are my hallway chants and songs:

And here you can see my incentive board, which I changed to paw print points after finding the most perfect paw print magnets at target. The dog house is where homework gets turned in. 

I have a pretty good feeling I’m on the right track because not only does my principal love it, but she walked a district personnel through who told me she “snapped a million pictures of that cute dog room.”

I’ve also attended some meetings this week (I’m one of two kindergarten team leaders) in which the following was discussed:

1. No we cannot do staggered start.

2. Yes, we can do pre-screening. (Woo Hoo! Small Victory!)

3. My co-team leader and I are not allowed to work together in the future because we are too organized and are forcing our administration to be more organized too... (We’re choosing to look at that one as a compliment!

I promise to post new pictures when I am done! I recently uploaded Movie Star and Super Hero themes to my TPT stores and don't be surprised if you check back in with me next August and I am re-doing my room in one of those themes... they are SO CUTE! Definitely my favorite yet! To see them go to my TPT store and click on "Most Recent."