Where do we learn?

Continuing with Teacher Week, today I'm going to give you a tour of my classroom by answering the question: Where? 

With my new school came a new classroom and I love, love, love it!  It's so much bigger and brighter than my last one.  

This is the view from the classroom door.  Look at all those kiddos working hard!  We were learning about the color green, can you tell?  

When you walk in the door, this shelf is on the right-hand side.  The top shelf houses the students' Morning Work binders.  They grab their binder on their way in the door and they're ready to work!

Next you'll find the students' cubbies.  The binders on top of this shelf hold the students' portfolios.  I'll add more details about these in a later post.

This is my desk.  I made the choice not to have a desk at my last school, so I wasn't too excited when I learned that we were required to have one at my new school.  However, I've come to love it!  My classroom is a lot bigger, so I suppose it's not a big deal to have a corner all my own.  Looking at this picture, I think I need to clean off the top of the tall filing cabinet - yuck!

This bulletin board is behind my desk.  I hang pictures of all my smiling kiddos.  They love to come check themselves out!

This little computer stand thingamajiggy is the best piece of classroom furniture ever!  It has a spot for my computer, the Elmo, speakers, etc.  It also has wheels so I can spin it around and use it standing in front of our whole group area or while sitting at my desk.  

Another one of my favorite things about my new classroom is that we have our very own sink and water fountain.  And our OWN bathroom!  No more sending kids out in the hallway and crossing my fingers that they come back in a timely matter.

 I use the counter next to the sink as my Lunch Choice area.  Each kid has a stick (I made them rainbow, so kids can find their name faster) and the lunch choices are posted in each area.  In this example, choice one was pizza, choice two was corn dog, and the third spot is for students who brought their lunch from home.  They simply move their stick beneath their lunch of choice, and voila! instant lunch count.

This is the classroom library.  I love how the rug coordinates with the bean bags!  I don't put all of my books out at once, instead I keep some bins in my closet and rotate throughout the year.

This is my small group area.  Behind the table I house the materials I need for reading and math groups such as leveled readers, magnetic letters, flashcards, etc.

This is the math area.  All of our math manipulatives are stored in one place.  The boxes on top are Math Stations.  Having everything in one place makes managing Math Stations easy-peasy.

Further down on the counter we store our Book Boxes.  Each kid has a box labeled with his/her name that holds books and a notebook for Daily 5.

This is our interactive Word Wall.  The words are held up with magnets.  When the kids need help spelling a word, they can find the word on the wall, take it to their seats, write it down, and return the word to the wall.  This week we added color words.  The kids were so excited that they used the words and wrote them on random assignments.  I love kindergartners!

 Our daily schedule.  The picture clues help my pre-readers keep track throughout the day.

 A comprehensive view of the front of the classroom.

On another wall I display my kiddo's work.  I used 3M hooks and tied fishing wire between them.  Each wire houses six or seven clothes pins.  The purple bags below hold Daily 5 Word Work materials.

This is the bulletin board display outside of my classroom. It's hard to tell in the picture, but each pair of sunglasses has a student's name written on it.

What does your classroom look like?!