Going on a “safari” to see more classroom photos!

I’m soooo excited so share my classroom photos with all of you! This is my first year having a “theme.” I always switched things up, but this year I had a ton of fun creating safari/jungle items. I am kind of crazy about monkeys......so that inspired me to have my kiddos take a safari adventure.  Below you will see the closest I could get to a whole classroom view.

This is my small group table.  I am a HUGE advocate for small groups.   I believe all kiddos CAN be successful at their individual level.  You will see my “FACE of a Safari Guide” board.  I love the lights outlining the board.  Also, My mother-in-law made the cool palm tree!

The “Grrreat Behavior” board is where students earn a piece of their lollipop for doing outstanding work/ being kind to others.  After all four pieces of their lollipop are earned, they get to choose from the “lollipop tree” on my desk! It’s amazing how little dumdums can be such an incentive. ;)

 

Our “Writing Hut” reinforces skills used during writer’s workshop.  Students can refer to this board after individual writing conferences as well.  Next to this board is our “Daily Five” choice board.  I just love the monkeys for each student’s name!  To the right of this board is our “Wild for Math” resources board.  Students use this often to look up strategies learned throughout the year.

 My carpet area is also titled our “Reading Hut.” Many of our mini lessons take place right here.  It is enclosed with crates my awesome dad made me a few years ago.  My “bench buddies” for the week get to sit on the crates. They are chosen for making good choices throughout the week……yet another incentive that works so well to get kiddos motivated!

I absolutely LOVE my behavior “ladder” this year!!  We call it a ladder since the goal is to reach the top.  The names are what crack me up.  They are arranged in this order: “Mischievous monkey,” “Troubled tiger,” “Poor parrot,” “Happy hippo” (everyone starts out here each day), “Great gorilla,” “Stupendous Snake.”

I’m ending my tour with a pic of my “Hunting for Helpers board.”  I have to share with you that my students were absolutely fantastic with already remembering their “jobs” this week.  I’m so excited for this year as I hope all of you are!

Check back early next week to see our geography pack and grab a freebie!  We hope all of you have a RELAXING weekend!  We know we will get some much needed zzzz’s to start out our first FULL week of school on Monday!  J

Meet-the-teacher night and TPT sale!

It is extremely hard for us to believe school starts in a week and 2 days—yes we are including those two precious days!  ;)  As we mentioned in our last post this is the very first year we are having a meet-the-teacher night. We’re thrilled to meet our kiddos and parents prior to day one to ease some of the first day jitters.  

Sooo…..due to this new experience, we decided to create a few items to go along with our “Safari” theme to help on this special night.  We are sharing the pack with you as a {FREE} download. Some of the items include: a PTA signup sheet, a transportation list, a helper signup sheet, goodie tags, a safari match game and more.  Click on the picture below to download the pack from TPT. We hope you can find it useful!

As many of you already know TPT is having a HUGE sale the 12-13th. We are debating back and forth as to what items we have to purchase! Haha. We are including all of our packs in the sale so please stop by and grab one of our items for a great discounted price. Have fun shopping!

 

Classroom Themes Continued....

Hi all! It seems like the school year is slowly starting to creep back up on us. I got a new carpet and meeting chair for my classroom this year and I dropped it off at school yesterday becuase I just had to get it out of my car. Then I got thinking...."Am I ready to come in here and start working in just a few short weeks? Where did summer get to?!" Looks like I better get working on all of those 'projects' I wanted to get done before the start of school!

Anyways, we are excited to announce that our 'safari-themed' Back-to-School Pack is up in our TpT Store! Be sure to head on over there and check it out!

We will give a Back-to-School pack away to the first 3 people who leave us a comment. Since we are always on the look-out for cute classroom ideas, leave us a blog or a website that we should check out. Let us know if you want the pirate pack or the safari pack and be sure to leave your e-mail address.

If you didn't get a chance to grab one of the Back-to-School packs for free, here are two freebies for you to use with your kiddos this year.

Heidi, at My (Not So) Elementary Life, has been doing a series of posts on classroom management. We just love heading to her blog for some great ideas. She has some awesome resources and lucky for us....they are pirate-themed! There are so many cute things that we will be picking up in the future. Be sure to check her out if you haven't already!

Val and I have so many ideas running through our head about what we want to make for our classroom this year. So, we are currently have a few units in the process of being made. Be sure to check us out next week for some updates!