Wow! I cannot believe I am about to start my 5th year of teaching. My 2nd year of 5th grade! It just seems like yesterday that I was beginning to embark my journey as a student teacher and now 5 school years later, here I am, in my own classroom. It's truly unbelievable.
So much blood, sweat, and tears went into this classroom, just like every year. I cannot thank my mom, Linda Wagner for all the help this year! I couldn't have done it without you. Also, thanks to my friend Sarah Schmid for helping and my grandmother Yvonne Wagner, for extra school supplies!
This year is extra special because I work at a very unique setting, a K-12 school. I have been teaching here since I graduated from my undergrad program. I started my first year of teaching in 1st grade at this school in 2013. Well, fast forward 3 year later, I moved to 5th grade. So now, this year, my fifth year, I have my very first group of 1st graders in my 5th grade class! This is truly exciting, because these kiddos hold an extra special place in my heart.
I am looking forward to teaching the same group of students again! Okay, enough of the chit-chat. I know you came to look at some awesome pictures! Enjoy!
Let's take a tour!
Each morning students will turn in their homework calendar and mark their name off in the daily homework check-off binder. This will help me to quickly see who has/hasn't turned in their homework. I have a classroom job, homework helper, to notify me of students who are absent or haven't done their homework.
The turn-in tray (pictured above) has a tray for each of the following:1. Notes for Mrs. Davis--This is for critical notes I need to see right away, i.e. doctor's appointments, parent questions, etc.
2. Permission Slips--Anything that I have parents sign and return goes in this tray.
3. Math--I am not my students' math teacher. SHOCK AND SURPRISE! Our K-12 school is set-up kind of like a normal middle/high school in 5th grade, where students transition to different teachers/classrooms for different classes. My students have a different math teacher, so they can turn in their homework and have it ready for when it is time for math.
The large book case (pictured above) is full of novels alphabetized by author's last name.
The big, white tote is where student's store their lunch boxes.
The brown wicker basket is for students to return library and book mobile books.
To the right of the bookcase you will see our classroom desktops. I have been fortunate enough to receive 3 classroom desktops and a full classroom set of chromebooks (not pictured) that are shared with the 6th grade students.
Above the classroom computers you will see my supply drawers. These are so handy to have! Students are able to easily access appropriate supplies without me having to tell them where they can find them or where to put them away! Here is a close-up picture of my supply drawers (pictured left)! You can get these chevron supply labels SOON at my TpT store!
Next to the classroom computers you will see my student mailboxes. I have assigned each student a number. Students will write their name and number on every assignment (pictured below). This will help me to quickly alphabetize assignments and sort mail and assignments back to students quickly and efficentely. I have attached a large binder clip to each mailbox slot and placed a label on the binder clip with each student's name and number.
This allows for easy reorganization for next school year when I need to reuse them! No more hours of peeling off old labels! WOOHOO!
I have also organized my turn-in trays for each subject area I teach: science, social studies, reading, and writing (pictured above). I also created bins for students to turn in their science and reading interactive notebooks.
Below the student mailboxes, you will see 8 purple baskets. I picked them up for cheap at the Dollar Store. These will be used as extra storage to hold books or table supplies as we move through the school year.
Guys! I am really excited about my masterpiece bulletin board. I LOVE displaying my students' work in the classroom, but I am so bad about changing it in and out month after month. So I have created a masterpiece board in the classroom where students can hang up whatever work they are proud of! It will put the responsibility on them to change their work! Each student is given 1 clothespin with their name on it to hang up the work they are most proud of!
I posted this pictured again because I want you to get a good look at the white spaces on the left-hand side of this picture. I have left blank space to hang-up all of my classroom anchor charts that we use throughout the year. I have chevron letters that title each subject area to organize anchor charts on the wall. You can get the letters for free here!
In this southeast corner you will see a little reading nook with two tall black chairs. My students love to buddy ready in these chairs in a quiet place.
To the right of the chairs you will see my CAFE board and Our Reading Goals board. As we learn new CAFE strategies we will add them to the chart after the mini-lessons. This year I am mixing things up a little bit and doing a genre passport for our reading homework. Students will have to read 30 books within 13 different genres for their homework this school year.
I absolutely love these cute little chevron genre posters that I found on TeachersPayTeachers. They really brighten up my space!
Below the posters you will see our Passport to Learning display under "Our Reading Goals". Here I explained how students earn stamps in their passports, how to go about finding a specific book in a genre, and directions on how to complete the homework. You can pick-up a copy of the passport here!
Below you will see two additional book shelves that I use to organize books by different themes and genres.
I also have one shelf dedicated for popular series, because students are always looking for a new, good series to read.
I also have my classroom store organized on the top shelf of my book shelf. Yes, I do have a real working register (Shoutout to my old photography teacher, Todd Layton, for donating this beauty to my classroom last year). My students absolutely love it!
Here I have organized my Davis Dollars where students will come to cash their checks weekly for completing their classroom jobs, collect their homework and on-time dollars, and where students will make change for bigger bills.
My classroom economy system is such a hit with my students. Not only are the externally motivated by the classroom money, but they are learning so many valuable life skills such as budgeting, planning, and basic finances. My students have to pay "rent" each month for their desks, chairs, chromebooks, and textbooks. They also get paid for doing their classroom job, turning in their homework, and showing up to school on time. Students can lose money for being late, having overdue library books, being respectful, and not doing homework. Students can earn money for helping their neighbors, keeping their desk organized, getting a
compliment from another teacher, etc. I purchased my classroom economy system here from TeachersPayTeachers!
This has been an absolute game changer for my students!
Here you can also see my classroom store where I have items that students can buy with their Davis Dollars twice a month. I have listed all the items I have avaliable and how much each item costs. I have 2 banker bosses who are in control of handling all the money transactions on a day to day basis. I also have 2 store supervisors who run the classroom store twice a month.
I am so excited by my new Readbox library system this year! A play on words as you can tell. Here students can check-out classroom library books and display their recommendations for other classmates after they have finished reading them. I also have created a place to store up to 8 books at a time on each side to display students' favorite books. I also include pocket protectors at the bottom to interchange students pictures holding their favorite book. You can read more about Readbox on a previous blog post by clicking here.
I also purchased a Music Wand from Bella Luna Toys. This is great for quickly getting students attentions.
Above the whiteboard you will see my classroom rules, the 5 R's, and half of the alphabet. I also have chevron cardinal directions posted on each wall in the classroom. I got those for free also!
Below the whiteboard you will see this awesome idea that I stole from our 2nd grade teacher, Gabe Thompson. He installed all-purpose gutter underneath the whiteboard to hold classroom books. This is a genius idea for all those books you want to use as mentor texts or books you want students to pull to use as a resource when learning a new reading or writing skill.
Thank you to our school handyman, Steve Allaway for getting this set-up for me over the summer.
Below the repurposed bookshelves, you will see 26 book boxes. I am trying a new thing this year where students will store their books in these book boxes instead of their desk. So many of my books got demolished last year because students were shoving them into their desks. I have created these cute gray chevron labels with each students' name on them.
Also, you will see my classroom hand singals. Each hand signal notifies me what students need when they raise their hand.
1-Drink
2-Pencil
3-Bathroom
4-Tissue
5-Question
This allows me to quickly answer students' need during a lesson, without any confusion or disruption.
On the whiteboard you will see several different sets of chevron circles.
On the far left you will see my students' question board. This is where I display a list of questions and answers my students frequently have during a lesson or assignment. Students have to refer to the question board before they can ask me an additional question. This elevates a lot of repeat question/answer scenarios. I will post more on this soon. I will also post them on my TeachersPayTeachers site soon!
I have a classroom set of chevron circles in blue and green. Each circle has a student name. I printed them off, laminated them, and added a small magnet to the back of each one.
The blue set allows me to quickly organize students into partners or groups. It also allows me to write down a list of directions and students can move their magnet to let me know which step they are on in a given assignment.
The green set is our catch-up club set. Students move their name to the whiteboard if they owe me some recess time to complete an assignment.
I have also created a gray set to quickly organize our Daily 5 rotations. Also, I have created blue set of these to display our classroom calendar. You can get my classroom calendar here!
To the right of the calendar, you will see another small little reading nook for my students. They love to curl-up in their black, dish-shaped chairs with a good book.
Behind them I have placed a long strip of gorilla tape to hang additional anchor charts, because as you know nothing hangs well directly on brick.
Next the the reading nook is my small-group table where I will meet with my guided reading groups. Here I have an organized space for each of my 5 reading groups.
In the 10 drawer, brightly colored, rolling cart, you will find 2 drawers for each of my reading groups. The top drawer is where students will store their guided reading folders with their assignments inside. The bottom drawer is for me to store all of my supplies for each group: lesson plans, reading materials, etc.
Next to the small group table you will see my teacher desk in front of the classroom window. I used to have my desk in the opposite corner, but it was always too dark and dreary. I am super excited to have some extra light near my desk.
On my desk you will find my teacher laptop, pictures of my hubby and dogs, and my guided reading binder that I use frequently.
I am really looking forward to enjoying this space. I also like that I have a clear view of the classroom door.
I am a big football fan! So here I update all the weekly football scores of my favorite teams! The students absolutely love this and look forward to hearing how my teams did over the weekend! I also invite students to write comments or post the scores of games they watched on the football comments board.
On top of the mini-fridge is where I have my document camera that hooks up to my computer to project items on my computer screen or documents on to the tv for the students to see.
To the right of my desk you will find my filing cabinet where I store all my files from past lessons and other resources that I use throughout the year. To the right of the filing cabinet is where you will find my game and puzzle drawers for students to access during our Fun Fridays and the occasional indoor recess.
However, I utilize the door to display all of my classroom jobs in small little pockets. I place a popsicle stick or a notecard with the students' names on them in each pocket to signify which job they currently hold.
I also store a list of students expenses and fees, list of deposits and withdrawals, extra transaction sheets, and classroom job applications for students to access.
Above the classroom closet door is where I display all of my students' birthdays on these cute little cupcakes!
To the right of the classroom door you will see all of my cabinets organized with my chevron supply labels. You can get them from my TeachersPayTeachers Store! I have these organized down to specifically what is inside each cabinet. Again, this helps students and myself, find supplies quick and easy. Everything has a place in my classroom. This is really for my own sanity. I also found this cute rocking chair at a thrift store, my students love rocking to a good book.
Well there you have it! My 2017-2018 classroom reveal! I hope you enjoyed it! I can't believe school starts tomorrow! Good luck fellow teachers!
For more items check out my TeachersPayTeachers Store!
