Classroom Tour

Sad news folks: I have to move classrooms for next year.  The room I am moving into is a long rectangle with ugly brown laminate cabinets, dim lighting, and two (2!) large green chalkboards.  Ick.  The good news is, I'll be challenged with creating a fabulous learning environment once again this summer.

I worked really hard this past year to create a classroom that was fun and inviting.  I hadn't had any "theme" to my room the previous two years and after perusing one of my favorite websites, Schoolgirl Style, I was inspired to makeover my room into something truly fabulous.  I'm sticking with the Zebra/Safari theme again this year, so some of the elements will stay the same, but I'm curious to see what it will all look like in my new room!  Here are some of my favorite elements of my room from 2012-2013:

I spent a lot of time reorganizing my classroom library.  I feel that if students are motivated to read, they will be motivated to learn.  I'll post on the specifics of my library set-up later, but wanted to give you a sneak peak because it was the absolutely most awesome part of my room!

I saw this idea on Pinterest and tweaked it a bit for me.  It was more of a daily reminder to myself of the power of my positive influence on my student's lives than it was for them.

I have no bulletin boards in my room, so I covered boring wooden clipboards with black contact paper and hung them on the wall with Command utensil hooks.  Student pictures were later added to the zebra name tags on each board.

Ignore the random junk in this photo as it was taken during the initial set-up phase!  This was my kids' favorite part of the room: zebra desks!  I covered the black bottom portion of each desk with zebra print duct tape. It took 8 rolls and about 15 mins per desk, but it was SO worth it.  I was afraid it would be overwhelming with all of the desks done this way, but it really wasn't.  My previous students who stopped by my room were super jealous that I hadn't done this for them!  I'm a little terrified of how much gunk will be left on the desks when I finally remove them (one of the main reasons I'm sticking with the zebra theme again this year), but I'm trying not to think about that part yet!

I set up a Math station this year. Mostly, this was used to store materials for our centers, but students also used this if they finished their regular Math Centers early.  The black bins had picture books about Math concepts, extra flash cards, and other small activities students could use by themselves.

I have used "Bucket Fillers" as part of my classroom management system for the past three years.  I found these animal print buckets through Oriental Trading.  The zebra curtain on the window is actually a cheap plastic shower curtain that I found at Walmart trimmed to valance length.  

These are just a few snapshots of my world!  I look forward to sharing more pictures and details for how I actually used these elements in future posts.