This year, our 4th grade team chose to do a music theme. We each took a different decade or genre of music and decorated our classroom from there. Since I love all things bright and colorful, I chose a "disco" theme. Boogie on in, and take a peek!
Here is our door. I know, It's pretty drab right now, but my super cute
bulletin board to it's left will house pictures of my new students for
about a week, but will soon be replaced with student work. I'll move the
pictures to the door then...if they'll fit! I already have 26 students
on roll!
This may be my favorite welcome back board in 8 years! WOW! Is this really my 8th year? I love it!
I made this super cute name sign for my window, much thanks to my sister, who gave me a gift card to Michael's for my birthday this summer. It's me to a T. Colorful and polka-dots!
Here is the view from the door of our classroom. It looks big in these pictures, but when I'm trying to do the arranging, it feels like we MUST have the smallest classrooms ever.
This next view is from my small group table. It gives me a great view of the entire room, so it's easy to manage those who are working independently while I am working with a small group or conferencing with individual students.
Here are a couple of more shots from the other corners in the room.
At the back of the room, I have cubbies. My husband had these built when I taught kindergarten, and though I have had many opportunities to sell then, I just can't. They're great for housing student materials on top like pens, pencils, highlighters, post-its, etc. I house dictionaries, guided reading books, and other things in the actual cubbies.
I am teaching literacy this year, and I chose something relatively simple for my first bulletin boards. For the reading side, I have taken books that tend to be popular among fourth grade students and display them with a short book blurb. This not only gives students who need help selecting their first independent text some ideas, but also gives different examples of how students can write a blurb. Most of these I found online.
I wrote a letter to my students telling them about myself. I have this displayed on the writing board. I will add pictures of me and my family before next week. During the first week of school, the students will write a letter to me telling me about themselves. This will let me learn more about them, get a feel for their writing style and conventions, and make a cute bulletin board! :)
I made the lettering for my homework section with my cricut. Love that machine!!
My guided reading area is very simple. I like to have it close to my door, so that interruptions are kept to a minimum. I have a small bookshelf behind it to house materials, and a lamp to make it a bit more cozy. More on the lamps later...
Our whole group area is near the front of the room with easy access to our white board, ELMO, and ENO board. That's where the mini lesson magic happens. Since classroom rugs are SO expensive, I bough 4 small rugs from Wal-Mart for $19 each. I turned them over and duct taped them together, then duct taped them to the floor. This is my 3rd year using them, and they are still in pretty decent shape.
The classroom library...ahhhh, my FAVORITE part of the room. My shelves were made by my husband's late grandfather during my first year teaching. He made them with scrap wood from his workshop. They aren't the best, and Joe has many times offered to replace them, but I just can't. I love my rickety shelves! They were originally painted bright blue and green, but I went with black to stream-line them a bit, and I think they turned out great! Our books are in baskets arranged in groups such as "Awesome Authors", "Series books", "Science books", "Picture books", etc. Each book has a sticker with it's basket number. It was labor intensive, but the kids like knowing where a book goes, and if I need a book, I know just where to find it!
My desk area...nothing fancy, but I wanted a picture to prove that is is neat...at least for a day. Check again next Wednesday after our first day of school. Yep, THIS Wednesday! Four days and counting.
Thanks for taking a peek into our classroom! It's going to be such a fun year. :)
