Welcome to Room 5

Here's the grand introduction of my monster inspired room.  A lot of it is the same as last year, but there are some new things I'm excited to share with you!

My paper lanterns are new and I LOVE them.  They look a little lame-o in this picture because of the "natural" school lighting, but they are little balls of happiness to my eyes.

My monster door with a "Welcome" bunting.

The calendar wall.  This will hopefully be changed soon to include money and time (due to the fact I'm not supposed to teach money and time during my regular math instruction time anymore).

This is the extent of my calendar money section.  My little monsters put a penny in the bank for each day we're in school.  They have to exchange money when needed to make the least amount of coins in the bank, but keep the same amount (i.e. 5 pennies get exchanged for 1 nickel).

A couple of pictures back you'll see targets on my whiteboard.  I put the objective for the lesson on the board for each major lesson and my students need to be able to hit the "bullseye" at the end of the lesson (meaning they can say the "I can" statement and have learned the objective).  

Monster Jobs wall.  Each students has their name on a monster and they get moved in and out of jobs on a weekly basis.

Close-up.

I kept my clip chart the same, but decided to dye the clips this year!  I used R.I.T die from Michaels to die 3 sets of clothespins.  I have a purple, orange, and blue set for when my monsters retire their clips.

Another close-up.

Basic schedule of daily activities.

"Words to Scream About" Word Wall

Inside the closet are where my monsters hang up their personal items.  The magazine boxes on top are for the new Daily 5 program I'm starting in place of centers.  They'll hold books on the independent reading level of my students.

How adorable are these cute number labels?  I adore them.

Gumball Math for math facts.  Each student has their own gumball machine and will receive a paper gumball for each math facts test they pass off.

Giant gumball machine!

Birthday Wall.  

Once school gets started, I'll take pictures of the students who have birthdays in each month and put them on the board.

One of my favorites!  I love this green monster.  

Computer Area.  

I've attempted to clean it up a little this year.  If only the district tech guys could keep is this way.  

Sadly, in some ways they're worse than my students.

Cords are the bane of my existence so command hooks to the rescue!  

Now each set of headphones has its own hook and hopefully (cross your fingers) cords won't get so tangled!

The main attraction in the classroom is our clubhouse.  

T designed it and we created it together.   

I love how it makes my room welcoming and bright.

Attached to the roof of the clubhouse are these adorable monster flower lights my aunt and cousin taught me to make.  

The cupcake liners are from one of my students last year and her amazing mother. 

I think they'll be fun for Meet the Teacher night!

Inside the clubhouse.  This is the biggest physical change of my classroom this year.  

My library has been moved out into the classroom and the guided reading table took it's place!  

I think I'll enjoy this set-up even more.

This year I've tackled the Accelerated Reader (otherwise known as AR) reading program.  

It took a full week to label every book in my classroom and get them organized in bins.  

This creation is my baby of the summer.  

With the help of a giant oil pan from Walmart, I made this goal tracker for my students reading.  

Here's a close-up of the monsters going down the left side that have the AR points on them.  

The smaller monsters below are the individual pieces that students will move up as they receive more points throughout the AR program.  

These large monsters will eventually hold the rewards for each term that my students can earn if they reach their term goal for reading.

Here's our classroom library!  

It's cozy, cute, and ready for little bodies to read cozily in the corner.

This sign is from the student teaching phase of my life made by one of my incredible mentor teachers.  I love it!  

The orange monster next to the sign was the first monster I made and was named after Tikki Tikki Tembo by my class last year.  

The crocheted monsters were made by my utterly creative and talented sister, Misty.  

She loves me.

A close-up of my AR book bins.  

I was pretty pleased with how they turned out.

Here's a few monsters from this years batch of birthday monsters!  These three are my favorites and this year I've added the star design to the monsters.  The kids eat these little guys up!  They get so excited for their birthdays so they can pick their favorite one.  

I'll admit, it's one of my favorite things about my monster theme too!

We'll also be starting an Estimation Jar in my class this year.  I fill up the jar the first week and then it gets sent home with each student during the year.  They refill it with a wrapped treat or small toy (i.e. erasers) and return it to school.  We'll spend the rest of the week estimating how many items are in the jar.  The person with the closest estimation takes it home the next week!

Close-up of the Estimation Jar label I created.  

It's one of my favorite things I made this summer.

This will be the writing station that is included in the Daily 5.  The whiteboard will be filled with writing tips, signs, editing posters, etc. as the year goes on.

(stools and tables from IKEA)

A cute monster journal cover I found online.  The journal pages inside are progressive and start with a few lines and progressively get longer and longer.

This is the set up for Meet the Teacher Night.  The bare spot on the desk will hold the chocolate covered Oreo treat I'll make the night before.

Of course it's Pinterest inspired and I got the idea from here.

IKEA (of course!) rug and my Promethean board.  I love my Promethean Board.  So much.  I couldn't go back to teaching without it. 

EVER.

Tubs from last year.  They need to be reorganized, but for now, they're fine by me!

And one little random picture... Due to the fact that I HATE cords and how they get tangled, I have to be a little creative.    Can you tell how these cords are organized and ready to be plugged in?  I love my clips!

I can't wait to meet my new batch of 31 cute little monsters on Monday!

Coat Closet

Are you all sick of classroom posts yet?

Too bad!

Inside the coat closet in my room are hooks for my little monsters to hang their coats and backpacks on. My mom, sister, and I spent a good half hour scraping and scrubbing off at least three types of labels (that were layered on top of each other!) with the nasty goo-gone product (but which also works LOVELY on stubborn sticky labels that won't get off). After finally getting down to the wood, I was bound and determined to not put anymore labels in this closet. There was no way I was going to spend next year scraping and scrubbing if I didn't have to.

So I came up with this idea...

Zip ties! The extra still needs to be cut off, but these babies are just as good as labels (better, I think) and won't come off! They're sturdy and perfect. I spent a couple of minutes tossing backpacks on them and attempting to get them off.

And the result was... they refused to come off! They won't come off until I actually cut them off if I want to change them out next year.

I'll leave you with a close up of the handmade monsters my sister made for my classroom! She has quite the talent for crocheting and I'm lucky to benefit from it!


(There are still two monsters on the way... my sister is awesome)

P.s. The lamp was only 4 big ones at IKEA. 4 dollars!

Can't go wrong at IKEA.

The Monster Tour

I've been gone from blogging for almost a month.
So I decided to show you what I've been doing with all that time...
(drumroll please)

This is the view you see once you walk into Room 5 at Rock Canyon Elementary.
My room is HUGE.

My classroom Word Wall. The cool thing about these doors that look like storage doors is that they actually open up to wall hooks for the students to put their backpacks and coats in! Then I close them and WALLAH! I don't have to look at all of their stuff all day long.

Front corner of the classroom. This whiteboard is actually chalkboard turned whiteboard from a garage sale. We pulled off the chalkboards and cut the whiteboard at Home Depot, drilled some holes and we got a whiteboard easel!


This is T's pride and joy of my classroom. He designed and put the structure together and I "shingled" the roof. It will eventually have a sign that says "Kussee's Klubhouse." Eventually.


I made these puppies. Yarn balls! Just like paper mache, but instead of newspaper you use yarn!


The library inside the clubhouse! Are these bins just not the coolest?


A closer look at the bins... I organized them according to topic, although next year once I have more books they'll probably be sorted according to the AR level reading.


The awesome pillows my Grandma surprised me with. They match my book bins! The rug is from IKEA.


My desk. The monsters hanging from the ceiling were all handmade by yours truly and are for my students birthdays. I made 10 extra in case of new students, secretaries birthdays, etc.

A close up of one of my favorite monsters...


Journals for the kiddos. They're just composition books covered with cardstock using modge podge (which is my new best friend).


I'm going to attempt the clip chart management. I've done research into different behavior management systems and to my personal preference, I enjoy the clip chart system. It's similar to pull cards in the classroom with the exception of the fact that students can work their way back up the chart if they do poorly during the day! You can read more about it and find your own preference by going here.


The birthday bulletin board and Mon "star" of the week board!


Monster jobs!


The calendar area right when you walk in the door. The writing steps are on the board next to it. I'll take my students pictures the first week, print them, and laminate them so the students can move their picture depending on where they are at in the writing process.


Colorful bins! These were in the Target dollar section and hold my wooden pattern blocks along with supplies I don't know what to do with yet.


I made these magnets by ordering pins without the pins on the back from an Etsy store. Then I attached some magnets and got personalized monster magnets!


More bins for storing math manipulatives. I'm OCD and have to label and number everything...

The front of the classroom. Do you see my sweet awesome promethean board?! It's an interactive whiteboard that enhances learning by leaps and bounds. What a blessing to have one in my own classroom!I could keep going on and on about my classroom and showing more pictures... but I'll stop now.

Now onto lesson planning!