Old Classroom Pictures

 I was going through some pictures and found these of my old 2nd grade class. The school I used to be at is only about 8 or 9 years old so the rooms were huge and had tons of storage. Now I am at an old school and teaching in a bungalow with NO storage. Anyways, thought I'd share...

Here is the classroom entrance. 

This is a view of most of the classroom. On the other side of those windows are back offices for my room and 2 others. I miss my back office.

This was my behavior board. Just a simple card pocket chart.

My writing wall - the kids made little Corduroy bears after we read the story and I thought they were so cute that I just couldn't send them home. I had to put them on display for the year.

This is the writing area for workshop. (In case you are wondering - my district requires us to ONLY put up perfect work. We all know that is impossible. The loophole? Stick up a "Work in Progress" sign and ta daaaa!)

Self Explanatory

We use Step Up to Writing. This is earlier in the year when they are just using a basic paragraph template. Oh, and my classroom clock is actually on the wall above the front board so I can't see it when I am using the docu-cam so I slapped this little guy on the back wall, and now we are never late for dismissal. Like that was ever a problem... haha.

I loved my math focus wall. My students used it ALLLL the time. The pocket chart was for workshop. If anyone would like some of the vocab posters I made, just comment below with your email and I'll be happy to send them to you. 

Here is another view of just the math workshop pocket chart. Under it are all of the workshop materials. The games are from my favorite... Teacher Treasures. Every year I go to her seminars at the CTA conference... even though they don't change much. She is just such an amazing speaker and has the best ideas. I am always excited about teaching when I leave her seminars. Oh, and the games are so easy to make. Cut and laminate and throw in a bag. D-O-N-E!

For each unit, we had a different theme and obviously a different fluency goal. I would write the names of the students that passed on the sheets and post them up on this bookcase (mostly to hide the junk behind there. hehe) The notebooks are part of the Imagine It! (the newer Open Court)

Part of the reading area. That wall actually slides open, connecting the rooms.

Another view of the reading area.

This was for math fact fluency. They took tests on the computer and each time they passed a level, they got an ice cream scoop to decorate.

A figurative language project we did to go with "How the Guinea Fowl Got Her Spots". Oh, and another Work In Progress sign.... just in case ;)

close up. Look at those lion's eyes... and apparently I am working these kids too hard at PE? lol.

George Washington Directive Cutting project and writing.

 comment with an email for the directions to this and writing template

Cat in the Hat acrostic poems.

Science Projects. 

Listening Area - if you can hang your headphones on hooks like this, it will make your life so much easier.

Computer Area. 

Language Arts Workshop Materials. Every teacher needs Hot Dots in their classroom! 

The kids and I looooove them. 

Make one of these! It will help your students sooo much! We brainstormed a list of words that are in the beginning of question sentences. I thought they got them all, but noooo ... 

as the year went on we found 4 more! 

A little magnet game area.

They would do rainbow words or stamp vocabulary and display them on this wall with magnets.

What teacher doesn't love highlighter tape? I made these sentence strips and then the kids would use highlighter tape to mark their answers. Later in the year I found the Correct a Sentence Pocket Chart Kit and it saved me a ton of time! Click here for that.

Reading Focus Wall - We used Open Court so that's what all of this is. 

Fish Sticks. Get it? The kiddos love these and I just peel off the letters at the end of the year and change them out with my new students so I don't have to keep making new ones. Or if I'm really lucky, my new students have the same names as my old ones! I just taped two popsicle sticks together, painted them, and used some foam fish stickers.

Here they are thrown into their fish bowl.

Workshop 

mailboxes and daily copies

math Fruit Loop graphing

Concept/Question board for the Courage Unit

Vocabulary Word Bank - students took turns creating sentences. One student would write a word, another would come up and add a word, and another, until the vocabulary word was used correctly. 

Calendar and Phone Wall

 Food Pyramids and our breakfast table 

Hope you were able to get some ideas! If you have any questions or requests for things, please leave a comment. Happy Sunday!

I'm Obsessed...

...with Brag Tags that is. How cute are these?

Like I said in a previous post, I saw these on Mrs. Carroll's blog, The First Grade Parade, and haaaaaadddd to have them. I emailed Mrs. Carroll asking her a million questions about them and she wrote back right away explaining how they are used at her school and what a positive response they have had. Of course I grabbed my "cutesy" partner in crime at school, and her and I ran around researching the tags, creating them, and begging PTA to buy them for us. It worked and they came on Friday! I looooove them!!! They are just plastic laminated Army dog tags that you can personalize and reward students with. We are following Mrs. Carroll's lead and having students keep them proudly displayed in the class all year, wearing them to assemblies only, and then taking them home at the end of the school year. We ordered from imagestuff.com on a Wednesday and they were in our hands by Friday! I can't wait to show the kidlets!