Where It All Goes Down Wednesday

Here is is...the place I work 40 hours a week and volunteer the other 10 ;) I'm Blog Hoppin' for Where It All Goes Down Wednesday. I've been so busy with cleaning my classroom to take these pictures school and writing the posts, I have barely had a chance to stalk everyone else and discover new ah ma zing teachers/rooms/ideas. So here goes nothin!

This is a 360 view of my classroom

 Carpet area/ reading group table

 Whiteboard and projector area

 Math wall, computers, cubbies and writing wall (student work)

Door to playground, library/center and cabinets/counter top

This is where the magic happens. Reading groups, small group math, writing, you name it! The "Rainbow Readers" (based on Rainbow Fish) focus wall has our story of the week info on the pocket chart, spelling words, phonics focus and vowels that stick words together like glue (from Lindsey @ The Teacher Wife).

This is my Eric Carle word wall and easel area. The easel has all of the activities we use during our whole group instruction and I can turn it around for math/writing and hang chart paper or use the whiteboard. This is my first year with a 2 sided easel and I'm obsessed.  

The bookshelf houses my math centers, math books and various math activities (most of which are still stored away, I'll leave it Feung Shui for now). My calendar math wall that I really condensed this year, I wanted everything to be used daily and be meaningful. We have calendar, place value, and skip counting. Everything else I do on the whiteboard next to it. This way I can change the activities based on what we are learning. We do our daily graph here as well as the weather. The whiteboard also houses my agenda and spelling words (for lack of a better location currently). Under the wall are my teacher read aloud books (beginning of the year theme) job chart (pocket with index cards that I rotate weekly) and behavior chart. Only 3 yellows today!

We have 2 classroom Macs which I love for Accelerated Reader and I also use as a center (Starfall, PBS Kids, Sight Words with Samson etc.)

Cubbies (so unorganized I am noticing, I'll have to get my kids on it in the am!) and "Great Writers Grow Here" (Mrs. Spitzer's Garden themed writing wall). This is student work from the first day where I only had 14 kids! I'm up to 20 now, perfect round number. The colored trays are for turn in and the red folders are for reading rotations.

Various literacy activities at Center 1, I used a desk this year because I find that it keeps the kids more focused (missing: objectives...don't tell!)

Center 2 Word Families, the kids build 3 word families, use the step board to build cvc words and read the "at" word family book :) Next week this will be a vowel center.

Center 3 is "Rainbow Words" a fun center that I learned from fellow blogger and my mentor teacher http://tickledpinkmandy.blogspot.com/ The kids use mulitcolored letter magnets and place them on the alphabet arc. Then they use the spelling word list and recording sheet to write the words using colored pencils. The color of the pencil corresponds to the letter magnet that was used to build the word. Very fun and the only thing I change weekly are the words, love that part.

Center 4 is in the library, "Oh the Places You'll Go, Reading Will Take You There" (Dr. Seuss of course!) The kids read the big book of the week and write or illustrate 4 things they saw/read in the book. There is also a pocket chart activity and leveled books available. I made the pillowcases out of towels so I can take them off and wash them, a great idea my teacher gal pal Lauren saw on a blog somewhere.

This is my teacher tech table, I can use my laptop or document camera to project things onto the whiteboard or screen. No smartboard yet!

TV and teacher wall, I need to get more photos up and my ASU pendant!

My phone area where I keep my student info and parent communication log so I can write down every time I talk to a parent. Very helpful! I also stole this little cubby like set up from Lauren :)

Clutter free (for now) counter top, I'm working on it! Ok so maybe I cleaned it for this picture but I'm really going to try to keep it clean!

There you have it, the place my kids and I go wild for! Thanks for stopping by...I can't wait to check out all of the other amazing rooms or hear if you like mine (so I won't feel so bad for myself when you read about Babbling Abby or Deanna Jump, seriously how do they get more hours in the day??)