Hey everyone! So I must say that I have been busy at work trying to change my classroom theme, and get everything for my new school year. I was just recently hired at the inner city charter school. I am so excited for this new adventure, but extremely nervous as well.
I am linking up with 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It.
Since I am moving to a new school, I thought what better way to start my new year than with a new classroom theme. I am making a small change to my bright blue and black chevron theme classroom to add lime green, bright blue, and black chevron. Here are some of the new changes!
The first thing that I did to update my new classroom theme was to change my teacher toolbox. I was so excited to get rid of some of the bins that I really did not use that often and create missing ones for things that I would constantly put in my desk. I loved the new lime green and bright blue chevron backgrounds with the large print that pops off the toolbox. It makes it so much easier to read and find! I am thinking of creating one of these for my students to use and place it in the student corner with all of their supplies. Any teachers use student toolboxes and does it work?
I then took my lovely file folder bins and updated these to go more with the classroom theme. I got rid of the black chevron and added more color and changed the font to get the new look on the right. I had to create a sixth grade bin this year since I will be teaching sixth and seventh grade math. I use these bins for student work (portfolio) and it allows them to place all their graded work in an area that they are able to find if they want to take quizzes or tests home to study. My students enjoy having their own personal spot with all their work.
The next thing I wanted to do was add more spunk to the overly used white board and cork board. I use the cork board near my desk so that I can tack up my schedule, the student's schedule, and any other important things that I need to know about for that week. The whiteboard I place near the front of the room and write all the objectives on it for the day. As you can see the white board gets used heavily and needed to be cleaned up a bit. Since I was repairing both of these items, I thought I would give them more color. I simply took bright blue duck tape and taped the edges of them. I had to make sure not to have any bubbles and that the tape was straight, but they were fixed up in no time. I took some nail polish remover to my white board and instantly it was all white again. I cannot wait to see what my new students say about the Michigan Football magnet! As always, I will make sure to keep track of their record right between my two magnets!
GO BLUE!
This was by far one of the most exhausting thing that I have done so far to get my classroom ready. I sat down with all my binders and all my paperwork and wanted to make sure that I figured out some type of system so that my binders, unit plans, and tpt purchases were organized. I hated the fact that I had things in different color binders. I sat down and looked at what I had the most of and what colored binders would fit the items the best. I ened up with all of my tpt products in the white binders and all my worksheets in the blue binders. I then created other activities and my teacher binder in green and pink binders. I still need to go through the rest of my worksheets and papers for the last month of school and file them correctly in the binders, but I can save that for a rainy day. I found keeping my worksheets and tpt items separate to be easier than putting together everything by unit or skill. I tend to use my tpt items as review or math centers. Since I was working with center things, I decided that I had to come up with a way to organize my centers.
I took this amazing rolling cart that I had in my classroom, which I really had no purpose for, and separated it into center categories. By the end of the school year last year, I was putting my laminated centers, task cards, and I Have, Who Has games into random draws. I feel so much better having things in bins. I am going to work on creating file folders to place the different laminated games in. I already placed the I Have, Who Has, and sorting cards into zip lock bags. I am really looking for ways that other teachers organize their center games, task cards, and flash cards. I want to make sure that my students have access to it in case we have a free day or a game day or if they want to spend time after school reviewing using one of the centers. What other ways do you organize center games and pieces?
I hope everyone has a wonderful week and I am excited to see what I create over this week. I know I already have a huge to-do-list with preparing for my new school!
