It's been a wonderful first week with my first grade class!
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My body is exhausted from the change in schedule and 12+ hours/day of work. Hope my body gets adjusted and back in the swing of things, without it crashing on me by 9pm.
As you can see, I don't have clutter. I feel that if you have too much stuff around the room it overstimulates the students! I keep my room pretty clear and now it's up to the kids to fill up the walls!
Nevertheless, I'm loving my new class and school!
I've never taken pictures of my classroom and shared it, but I am doing so now.
As a teacher, I love seeing how other teachers set-up their classrooms, so I thought I'd put in my two-cents.
I'm a minimalist, so I don't have clutter or tons of "stuff." In fact, since I've moved so many times in my life, I've purged and thrown or given away a lot of my things. I had over 20+ boxes of teacher materials that I sorted through and ended up recycling a bunch of resources. Why, you ask? Well, most of my lessons in the past I've never reused; plus, I have most lessons on digital files.
So, as a minimalist, I'm starting with a pretty clean slate as a first grade teacher. And I feel so good about it! My classroom theme this year is Hollywood, still putting the details up. It will eventually get done. ;) There are a million things on my to-do list as a teacher...all the time. Is that you, too?
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| The view of my classroom at the door. As you can see, I have 5 long tables as my students' desks. I prefer tables over individual desks, as it allows them to learn to work together and share the space. In each basket are pencils, erasers, markers, and crayons for them to share. They are responsible to keep it neat and tidy and put everything back nicely at the end of each day. Yup, I'm a little OCD. And so far, my first graders are doing well following my expectations! |
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| To the left of my classroom door is the sink and the only built-in storage cabinet I have. Good thing I'm a minimalist! This will be my science/social studies/art area. |
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| As we go around the room, clockwise, here is my writing/math table during centers. Behind that are my LA & Math manipulative/games bins. I did not label those cubby bins. The teacher who had the classroom did! Thank you, Ari! The whiteboard will house social studies, science, and math-related materials. |
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| My computer area and word wall in the Hollywood movie strip style that I downloaded for free from TeachersPayTeachers from Kimberly Moon. Thank you! |
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| A first grade classroom needs a carpet for circle time. The shelf holds the supplies I need for the day. In the corner is my big books cart/stand and where I make anchor charts with my students. Then, there's the whiteboard. On the wall, there's our classroom Code of Conduct aka rules and expectations. My students' work on how to be a good listener. And the red pocket chart holds our daily schedule. |
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| Here you have my teacher desk and our birthday wall, which needs a title like "A Star is Born" or something similar to go with our Hollywood theme. |
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| The shelf on the left holds all our supplies, like pencils, folders, glue sticks, markers, erasers, etc. To the right of that are my students' cubbies for classroom textbooks. To the right of that will be their book boxes and subject folders. The red boxes and carrier was a find as other teacher's were cleaning out their classrooms! Total score for me! I will be labeling them by student numbers, so I can reuse them year after year. The wall will be my CAFE menu, since I will be implementing Daily 5/CAFE with my students. |
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| This is my teacher/small group table with my whiteboard easel and pocket charts behind me. The shelf holds curriculum and leveled books and any other teaching material. |
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| As we take a 360 around the room, you will end with my classroom library. I need a little carpet here to make it more cozy. Those beanbags were purchased at Walmart years ago for $20/each. Love them! You can see the library/literacy wall. I will put up more Daily 5/CAFE info here. The cabinet to the right is my other storage closet. |
As you can see, I don't have clutter. I feel that if you have too much stuff around the room it overstimulates the students! I keep my room pretty clear and now it's up to the kids to fill up the walls!
I'd love to hear from you, let me know what you think in the comments! Thank you!
