The NEW room decore!

I spent the ENTIRE week at school, and my report date isn't until this Monday. I HAD to, my Dad is sick and IF I have to duck out of school this week or next I wanted everything and I mean EVERYTHING done and ready for the first week with kids! (lessons and ALL) I didn't want you thinking I was a workaholic or something! UPDATE....DAD made it through surgery  (whew)

I don't know if you remember but I went in on the first week in August just to drop something off...and took pictures and stayed a little while...I posted that here, you might want to go and see the before pictures to refresh your memories... (or in case you didn't bother to read it in the first place).

So on Monday when I left the place looked like this:

I was pretty happy, curtains up, bulletin boards covered, stuff out of the closet!
Then on Tuesday I went back for a workshop, and of course stayed AFTER the workshop and accomplished a lot more:

 I don't usually put the strategies up, but I wanted to see how it looked, not bad.

 I used the heading from last year's hallway display, and set up the gallery for this year!

What classroom would be complete without Jack and Annie? They guard the chapter book library in our room!

 Something new this year, I put up a "Book Shopping" list near the Fiction Book Library. All I have to do is use a dry erase marker and write their numbers under the day of the week. ( I number my kids, it makes classroom management work well for me!)

You might remember this guy from Thursday's post...I made my pencil sharpener into a BEE!

I didn't stay long on Wednesday as I had a date with my Mom, so I didn't really get too much physical stuff done, that was laminating day!

But on Thursday I really stayed all day...from 8am to 4pm...and here you can see I have started setting up for Meet the Teacher which is on Thursday of this week, like I said I NEED to get everything all set just in case I need to fly out to Vegas again! (He's having the surgery--perhaps??)
Here is how it all turned out by four o'clock that night:

This is the entrance area, here you can see my transportation display, and my NEW Common Board configuration...I'll post more about that later.

 

the Café board is on the right and on top of my Mailboxes are the cute "lost" buckets I made...they need ribbon on the handles and a trim of those signs, I got them as a FREEBIE earlier this summer...they are on one my Pinterest boards.

 

These are the closet and bathroom doors...they are the same as last year, I just put the clocks on top, if you notice I didn't put the time for RECESS up...yeah I have no idea when that will come into play with our new schedules this year!

 

This is the Learning Rug! We meet here a lot! something NEW for me, and don't laugh, is the kidney shaped table...I've never used one...I know 19 years in the business and NEVER used one...I usually do small groups at their desk area or on the Learning Rug...wish me luck!

 

This is another view of the doors and the Chapter Book and Favorite Author Libraries, you can also see my NEW ELA board...I will deconstruct that idea in another post! You might like it- all you D5 fans!!!

 

On the opposite side of the ELA board is my Math board, it's right behind the NEW Kidney table...that is where I plan on teaching Guided Math. As you can see (or not) on the Math board are my group headers and I plan on using Dry erase markers, or a Vis a V marker to write on the laminated cardstock to keep track of who is in which group that day!

 

This is another view of the Math board. If you notice on the left, that container is going to be repurposed to store my Math lessons this year... next to the bulletin board is the biggest white board ever...which I RARELY write on...I use it as my demo/anchor chart hanger!

 Calendar is divided from Vocabulary and Spelling Words, something new for me is that task chart...another Pinterest find!

 Here's a better up-close picture...plus something I implemented last year my BLURT CHART...also one of my Pinterest boards

 

A better look at the Blurt Chart. See that HIDEOUS blue/white shelf...ugh! I hate it, but that is the only place to put those out of date dictionaries. I WISH I could give them away...I want more practical ones...and ones with more words! Trade any one??? (Blue shelf included)

 After seeing this picture, it looks like I need to RE-DO my "Are you With Me?" anchor chart...get rid of that RED and in with the YELLOW! I also need to find a less ORANGE "First thing you do" poster...ick, I know what I'm doing this week-end! But I do LOVE my bees...yes another Pinterest idea!!!

 Speaking of Pinterest, I found this chart a long long time ago...but this year I updated my old one and got rid of the blue and made PINK the top...I'll let you know how blinged out we get! (When they reach PINK they get a jewel to add to their clip...once you run out of space on your clip, you get to put your bejeweled clip, in the clip hall of fame!)

 Next to the clip chart is the ELA board.  I am going to devote a whole post on that, but under the ELA board is my Word Work materials, as well as some Read to Someone task cards and Vocabulary games. 

 

 

Another NEW item in my room this year, is the Writing Process Status Chart...they will move their clip (We have a clip for that, is my favorite saying) so I can plan out my conferences better!

 In the back of the room are the computers. As you can see I have an MEET THE TEACHER Station set up...but I am going to switch this around too, as I study the picture I see that this is not a good idea to put the last station in the back...anyhow, I also put my subject themed word walls here in this part of our room!

 You can't see it, but there is a table next to the computers, here is where I plan on doing all my writing conferences and small groups. Therefore I put the Writing Goals up back here, notice I messed it up last year, instead of gluing down Writing Goals I glued down Goals Writing...now it just looks edited!

I also have a clip for our new and improved A.R. Chart! It's Bee Themed-thanks Mariella!

While out shopping with my Teacher Friend Neighbor, the one I bought lunch for in exchange for that fabulous sharpener...we found this perfectly matched cushion...now all I have to do is sand and paint that rocker BLACK!

In the backity-back of the room is the Non-Fiction Library and Math Tools area...I also put up the touch math numbers to help my kiddos who like to use their fingers...it gets them away from it after a while!
Holy Guacamole, this post is long! Sorry I just had to get it all out...be on the look out for a post talking about how I am re-structuring the D5 and more....Happy Back to school Week all!