My Classroom

Hey everyone! I have had my blog for almost 2 years and have never posted any kind of "classroom tour" pictures. As I was trying to straighten my desk, stash piles and clean up after a busy day - I realized this is why I don't post pictures! Forgive the mess - here goes!

Here is the view from the door.  (Keep in mind my school is about 25 years old) My teacher desk is in the upper right corner, the back cabinets are all storage and I use the area above the sink to display student work (I have more than 13 kids, I have only displayed the kids who have finished their project, the other 11 kids will finish tomorrow).
You will notice that the desks are in rows (GASP!!!!) I teach at a "traditional" school and the philosophy is that desks are to be placed in rows facing the front of the room.
Not my preference :(
I have a BEE theme in my class. Our rules are displayed on poster on the cabinets, these posters were purchased from Oriental Trading and I LOVE THEM!

UGGGHHH! I try, I swear! My teacher area is always a mess but I swear I know exactly where everything is. 

Those colored storage containers from Lakeshore organize all my papers for the week. My cabinets don't quite latch, as I mentioned before - older school. I have three hanging organizers on the wall: Copy, File and Grade. This helps me stay *somewhat* organized!

This is my favorite area of the room. I love when we can get out of our rows and meet at the rug. Notice my super comfy rocker?! That was purchased for my first daughter's nursery and when she outgrew it I decided to take it to school because it is SO COMFY! You can see our station buckets behind the easel and our book boxes to the left of the rug. The flowers in the corner behind my chair are part of our classroom management plan. You can read more about that here.   

Here is our classroom library. In our class we love doing author studies so I choose to organize most of my books by author. We have bean bags, reading buddies (the stuffed animals in the basket) comfy chairs and a small couch (sorry that got cut out of the picture) to make our classroom library feel homey. To the right of this picture is our horseshoe table for guided reading.

My final picture is of the front of the room. I display my BEEutiful Writing and Marzano Learning Scale at the front. The door is to my neighbors classroom. It desperately needs to be repainted and I would cover it but we are not allowed to (thank you fire marshall). The whiteboard is BRAND NEW, MAGNETIC! We asked for years for a magnetic board and we just got one this year, the first thing I did was buy magnetic punctuation pieces from Lakeshore, LOVE THEM! If only I had a Smart Board :(

Well that is the tour of my home away from home! Thanks for stopping by to visit!