Classroom Pics Trailer #2

My second and third years of teaching I was in the same trailer. The trailer was previously used for third graders. Because of construction, our third grade double wide trailers were split into 2 class rooms. The trailer I was in my first year was split into 2 classrooms for other teachers. Those classrooms were smaller than the trailer I was moved to.

The year before last year I moved to the new trailer. It was two trailers in front of my previous trailer. The trailer was smaller, but not too small. I liked that I was the first trailer and I could see the sidewalk my students walked on as they came to my room each morning. My first year we were behind two other trailers, so I couldn't see my students until they made it back to my trailer.

My trailer was the first trailer you came to when walking up the sidewalk.

This was what my trailer looked like when I first got inside.

 

I was lucky enough to not have to move much stuff. There were a few things my mom and I had to get out of my first trailer and move over. It was crazy hot outside and we were glad that we did not have to move everything!

The teachers before me made this tree. There was a support beam in the middle of the classroom and the tree made it look much better. This was also where the monkey theme idea came from! I didn't really have a theme my first year and my mom wanted me to come up with one. I think she was the one that came up with the monkey theme. Thanks mom!!

Since the trailer was much smaller I put the cubbies together instead of all against one wall. The cabinet by the door is where I put my folder baskets for homework books and daily folders.

This cabinet stored all of my construction paper and copy paper. Keep reading and you will see how it received a "makeover"!

This area on the left was the housekeeping area.

The beginning of the blocks center.

Lots and lots of books to be sorted! This shelf was given to me by our pastor's wife. Her son-in-law made this shelf and another one just like it. It worked perfectly under my dry erase board at the front of the room. It held tubs for math manipulatives. 

My striped chair I sat in when reading a story and the easel/cart. My desk was behind these.

My desk with a few drawer sets for bulletin board borders and teacher supplies. This was before everything was organized.

The left wall had cabinets along the bottom and two tall cabinets.

The back of the room. This was where my art center, puzzles and word wall were.

The other half of the back of the room. This is where the listening center and computers were.

Here is the reading castle with a cute pennant banner I made. Even though my trailer was smaller, I was still able to fit this in. It was important to me that this was in my room! My students love going in there to read!

My awesome assistant was getting the room clean for Meet the Teacher. This is the view from the front door.

My mom, dad and brother were great helpers! They helped get all of the decorations up and they made and hung vines from the tree. My mom and brother found a bunch of monkey stuffed animals at Goodwill and they had some of them hanging from the vines.

This was my word wall. We start the year with environmental print and then add the word wall words as we learn them. The puzzle shelf is under this. This area is also the art center.

This was my job chart this last year. Each job was on a pouch and each student's name was on a monkey. 

This was my star student area. Unfortunately we ended up taking it down because it did not get used. I am hoping to do a better job with it this year!

This was the cubby area. It was to the left after walking in the door. The yellow shelf next to the cubbies and the door was an ugly shelf. My dad sanded and painted it bright yellow for me! It looks so much better!

This was our bathroom door and it was right behind my desk. To the left of it was my leveled library shelf. This pocket chart was left in my classroom my first year and I love it! Each student has a pocket for their work. They are able to put their finished work in their pockets. This saves me so much time because I do not have to sort their work. It also helps when they don't have a name on their paper, because it is in their pouch. My parent helper is able to quickly grab their work and place it in their Wednesday folder each week.

This was a view of the right side of my room from the door. This trailer was a great size. The only downfall was the pole/tree in the middle of the room. There were certain spots at two of the tables where my students could not see what was on the smart board. 

This was the listening center and the computer center. My mom made the birthday display. The monkeys I picked up this week will hang above it in my new trailer this year.

This was the "front" door to our trailer. This ended up being the door we used. I originally wanted to use our "back" door as an exit door, but we had a problem with wasps in the railing of that porch and could not use it for a few weeks. We never went back to using that door. Each student's name was on a monkey on the door.

This was my front board area for calendar time. This white board was so small and was not magnetic. :( I wish I would have had a larger whiteboard. 

On the left side of this picture was the reading castle, train center and block center.

This was where we hung student's art work. We also hung it all over our walls! Any adhesive we used removed the surface color of the paneling on the walls. My walls looked terrible when they were not covered with decorations and art work. 

The front of my room. 

The circle table was the art table. The shelf behind it was where all of the art supplies for my students were. We also kept our pencils, art boxes and scissor/glue stick caddies on this shelf. Under the word wall was the puzzle shelf.

On this whiteboard I had my CHAMPS expectations. We used CHAMPS for the first time this year and I really liked it. It was hard to get used to at first, but after a while the students knew what the expectations were for each part of our day.

Thanks for stopping by to see my 2nd trailer pictures. I do not know when my trailer for this year will be coming. I have driven by the school a couple times and it has not arrived yet. I plan on getting  much better pictures of it before I get started and as I am working on it.

Workin' on it Wednesday: Classroom Purchases

I'm linking up with Kim at Kindergals for Workin' on it Wednesday. Since last week I have been starting to look for things I need for next year and purchasing them. Last week my mom and I went to Tomlinson's to look around. She needed curtain rods and we heard that they sold some. They have all kinds of things from trendy things to home decor. They also have a room with kids toys. I wanted to see what they had since we were there. They sell Melissa and Doug puzzles and toys for discounted/warehouse prices.

I already have plenty of puzzles, but I could not pass these up. Last summer I bought a bunch of the cheap $1 puzzles from the Dollar Tree and Target. I knew that these would only last for about a year. They actually held up better than I thought they would, but they are not the greatest puzzles. I have many Melissa and Doug puzzles and they have lasted all three years and are still in great shape. 

I bought the giant fire truck puzzle, fish colors puzzle, and alphabet puzzle to add to the puzzle collection I have. I have told myself to only buy these puzzles and not buy any more cheap puzzles! I am hoping to get rid of some of the cheaper puzzles, so we will have enough room for these better puzzles.

I also bought the see and spell set. I want to have a word work center this year and I think this will be great to have in the center during the beginning of the year. 

On Monday, I went to the Dollar Tree and Walmart to start looking/purchasing things for this year. I found so many great things to add to my room. I was in search of new baskets for books, small pencil baskets, pouches for take home books and name tag holders. I found all of these and much more!

I have been looking online at different baskets for my leveled books. I am not sure if I will use these instead of what I already have, but I bought them at the Dollar Tree while they were in stock. I already have 1 of these green baskets and it has held up for 3 years. I figured these would be good to have. I was so excited to find the small pencil baskets. They were 3 for $1. I have seen some that I liked on Really Good Stuff, but did not want to spend that much. I am going to use these with my guided reading groups. Each student will have a basket with a pencil, dry erase marker, eraser, pointer, etc.

I found all of this at the Dollar Tree too. My theme in my classroom is monkeys and they aren't the easiest to find. The monkey banner will hang over my birthdays display. I also got the birthday poster to put closer to the front of the classroom. I got a pack of reading posters to use in the reading castle. They had photo albums that I think I am going to use for word wall words. I haven't decided yet. I bought the notes set to write the words on and insert in the picture slots.

I also bought green ribbon. I saw an idea on Pinterest last year about using ribbon in the back of the homework book to help find the page. This helped speed up my homework checking this year.

I found these cute jars. I'm thinking I will use them for pencil jars. I like that they are clear. They also go with my monkey/green theme.

I found cute copy paper and an ABC's certificate. Our school is trying to cut down on the copies we use. We have a color copier and I love using it because it makes everything look better. I am hoping to use this paper with black and white font instead of using color copies so much. 

I liked this certificate and I think it will motivate the students that struggle to learn their letters. I also saw a great blog post this morning about ways to motivate my students.  I think I might try doing this!

I bought plastic name tags and green yarn for the beginning of the year name tags. I have always laminated my name tags, but they get gross by the end of the first week. We are starting school on a Monday in our district instead of Wednesday this year. I know I will need something that will hold up better!

One of my teaching colleagues sends home a book each week with her students. I have been searching for some kind of pouch to send books home in that did not cost $5 each! I wanted my pouches to be see-through so the book can be seen inside. I found these at the Dollar Tree and there are 2 in each pack. Now I am on the hunt to find some for the boys. These are pink and red, but the red folder has flowers on the top! 

The last thing I did for this week was to stop by our school to look at some furniture. Our commons building will be ready for this school year. The commons building has the art, music, PE rooms and our cafeteria and library. Our old library furniture was put in the main hallway for us to claim. I should have gone last week, but finally stopped by yesterday. Almost everything was claimed but I found this great bookshelf.

I wanted to find a new shelf for my leveled library. The shelf I have now works, but the shelves really aren't large enough. This shelf has plenty of space and has the same shelves on the back too. It is really big, but I am hoping it will work in my new room. I plan on putting it against the wall on its side so that both sides can be used.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I worked on this week! I posted pictures of my first classroom (trailer) on Monday. I will be posting pictures of the trailer I had this past year and the year before, later this week.

Classroom Pics Year 1

I will be moving to my 3rd trailer this year, which makes this 3 trailers in 4 years. I wanted to post pictures of each trailer to document my classrooms over the years. We will be moving in to the new building next year (2015-2016). I cannot wait to have a new classroom with plenty of space and storage!

My first year of teaching 2011-2012 I was a long-term sub at a small neighborhood school. My classroom was large there and inside the building. It was set up differently than any other classroom I have seen. It had a large middle room, a small back room, and a side hallway-like area for cubbies and storage. It was a very old school building, but the set up was not really too bad.

This is the hallway that was on the side of the main part of the classroom. There was a door behind me to the main hallway of the school. It was kind of nice to have the cubbies out here and out of the way!

These pictures are of the back section of the room. This is where most of the "play" centers were. 

The back section and the main section of the room were separated some by this wall. There was a great claw foot tub for the students to sit in and read.

This was the main section of the classroom. The ceilings were massive in the room. Tons of wall space!

Then in October of my first year I was offered a Kindergarten position at the school I currently teach at. They needed to create a fifth class and they had a trailer ready for me. This trailer was a double-wide with a bathroom in the middle. There was a sink and water fountain on each side. This worked great for center rotations because my assistant had two groups on one side of the room and I had the other two groups on the opposite side of the room. I forgot about the tile until I uploaded the pictures. The blue tile was the side we used the most. The red tile side was the side we entered from. The students would unpack and then walk over to the other side of the room. The red tile side was my assistant's side during center rotations.

This was the side we used the most.

This is the white board I used for calendar. My smartboard was installed a few weeks after I moved in.

We always entered from the farthest side of the trailer/closest to the main sidewalk. There were decent amounts of closets in this trailer. There was this one and one on the back side of it. There was also a cabinet by the bathroom.

The bathroom was in this area. It had its own mini hallway and it was huge. 

This is where the two larger closets were. The trailer had four doors but we only used the first door on the red tile side of the room.

This was the side closest to the main door we used. The students would come in and unpack on this side. There was plenty of room to spread the cubbies out!

This reading castle was handed down to me by a teacher that retired from my church. It fit perfectly and my students loved reading in it. 

This is how I set up my room. 

Calendar area before the Smart board was installed.

My desk area and the temporary Smart board. I had to wait for a teacher's desk to be ordered!

These are the only pictures I have of my first trailer, but I feel like the show a good amount of what it looked like. I wish I had more pictures of how I set it up! I am planning on posting pictures of my trailer I had for my second year and this past year later this week!