Classroom Tour!

It is finished! It is finally finished!!!

I can't even tell you how proud I am of my room. I randomly catch myself just beaming with pride at it. My own classroom. Wow! It took me many many hours of hard work, and I absolutely love how it turned out. I can't wait to have some more of those bulletin boards filled with student work. I will preface my pictures by saying that I think the room looks way better in person than it can be portrayed by my old little point and shoot. So view these pictures and then imagine things even better ;-)

As a reminder, here is the Before...

And After!

Back of the classroom before... 

And After!

 I am especially excited about replacing that ugly and ripped tan sheet with the pretty leafy green one.

You guys have already seen pictures of my library, as it was the first thing I finished in my room. However, it now features a green rug from IKEA as well as some comfy pillows that I got at the thrift shop for two bucks each.

When you walk into the door, this the homework/check-in section when you turn to the left. Students will put their homework into their file container, which will make it really easy for me to see who has it and who doesn't and to numerically order them for grading and inputting. If students don't have their homework, they have to fill out and turn in a "No Homework" Slip as well, in which they state their reason for not having their homework. I will keep all of these in a binder and it will be both a great way for me to see who is consistently forgetting homework but also a great way to show their parents.

This is a closer look at the table. The pizza pan on the left is how students sign in without me having to do roll each day. They simply move their magnet from Absent to Here. Then, I just have to look at who never moved their magnet to see who isn't there that day. I made the magnets out of 1 dollar clear stone decorations, modge podge and old/used bulletin borders.

This is my favorite portion of my classroom so far. The Boggle board is for early finishers, and the letters are easily movable. I can even very easily replace them with numbers or vocabulary for a simply made review bingo.

I love my interactive "Did you know?" bulletin board, which I found on pinterest. Students have a numbered clothespin, and they can either answer the question by moving it to "I didn't know that" or "I knew that!". At the beginning of the year, I am just asking a question to go with our Mystery theme, but later on in the year I can use this board to preview and check background knowledge on a unit I am about to start. It is going to be a fun way for students to learn new facts without me expressly having to teach that fact.

The picture turned out a little dark, but here are the prizes that students can buy in my class based on a ticket reward system that I have. I refuse to spend a lot (or any) money on prizes so they are all privileges I can give them for free. Even the treasure box is filled with cool knickknacks that were given to me rather than purchased.

Here are all of the jobs, of course with Mystery themed titles. From top to bottom the jobs are Paper Collector, Paper Passer, Supplies, Answer the Phone, Ipad Helpers (we have an Ipad lab), Pencil Sharpener, and Floor Monitors.

And finally, here are a few different views of the classroom than what has already been shown.

The classroom from the back of the classroom.

I work at a Christian private school, so this is my bible verse in the classroom. It is pretty much the only thing that distinguishes it from a public school classroom at the moment.

Word Wall, which will be filled with the academic vocabulary we learn this year.

The room as can be seen from the right front corner (where the jobs are listed)

Mystery-themed nametags on all of the desks!

Back left corner. This offers a view of my small group table. That table used to be where the projector stood but it was too big for be in the middle of the classroom, so I squished the projector and document camera onto a desk and am now using the table for better purposes.

Alright well that is it! Tell me what you think!