The Writing Center

I worked all day yesterday on my writing center.  It is starting to come together.  I have my newly painted red chairs at the table. 

A decorated a new bucket for the writing supplies.

I relabeled all the containers and baskets.  I set up four bins for the students’ writing folders. 

I worked on the word wall and added new color words to my color train.  

This weekend I want to create three posters for the area similar to what I had last year:

What Authors/Illustrators Do…

I Can Write….

Mrs. Schueller’s Writing Expectations

and I want to hang up the ladybug  mobile that the kids made last year and hopefully they will have installed the new lights in my classroom so I will not have to work in the dark again this week.  

Reading Center

It has been a long productive week at school.  I am obsessed with the little details of my classroom.  I think I focused non-stop on my classroom all week. 

One center that took up a majority of my time was the reading center.  I spend a lot of time making new labels for baskets and books to help with organization. 

My reading center is in a u shape.  Hopefully to help the students to circulate and find books.  

Against the file cabinet I have a lot of the popular bits:  Curious George, Clifford, Mo Willems books, Ladybug books, Ocean, Animals, Dogs, and Bears.   

In the smaller bins I have other popular series and topics.

On the shelf to the left I have mainly the picture books but as the year progresses I will open up the shelf on the right with the chapter books for the students who are ready for the challenge. 

I have my leveled books lined up and ready to go for home reading.

My poetry basket has poems in it from kindergarten for them to review right now.  I will add new poems each week during first grade.  

There are a couple cutesy things I added to my reading center.  I wanted the children to have some place to sit.  I don’t like them sitting on the floor.  I found these cute ottomans at Target.  The best thing about them is that they open up for extra storage.  I have stuffed animals inside them. 

I put this little table in the reading center.  I want to put special books on the table. I found one cute chair to paint red and I am on the lookout for one more. 

I painted the letters “READ” for the wall. 

I had to paint a new library bucket to go with my new color scheme. 

 I have one more project planned for the reading center if I get to it.  However all the must do items are complete.

Happy Reading :)  

Friday Favorites - Who Is A Scientist?

Who is a scientist and what does he/she do?

This is my essential question for my first science unit?  I have been searching Pinterest to see what ideas are out there to put together my unit.  Here are the great resources I found. If you are thinking of starting at this point as well. Check out these resources. 

A Place Called Kindergarten

 I was so impressed with this post last year I purchased the resource book, unfortunately I did not read the book yet.  It is on my list of things to do.  Get list of books to read to the children and journal responses. 

First Grade Wow

Nancy created a wonderful packet with lots of ideas for throughout the year to use with a science journal.  Great Resource for Free!  Great Blog!

Kindergarten Kindergarten

I love this Science journal cover from Kindergarten Kindergarten Blog.  I am going to do this for sure  I like her science activities I am thinking of doing some of them just to introduce science materials.  She also has a great post about introducing science in your classroom. 

I hope you find these ideas inspiring to you.  Hopefully you can find a minute or two to go and read some of these wonderful ideas.  

Enjoy :)

Inspiring Words

I do not have a lot of wall space in my new classroom so I have to be a little bit creative.

I found two bare areas I thought I could use to put some inspiring words.  Keep in mind I teach at a Catholic School.  I wanted one of my messages to reflect who we are as Christians. 

I have been reading several books by Joyce Meyer this summer and this is her underlining message.  I thought it would be perfect for my classroom. 

The second message I found on Pinterest.  I thought it was cute.  I wanted the children to see it every time they left the room.  So I worked it into my message/lunch area right by the classroom door. 

I made all my letters with my silhouette machine.   I love that machine.  

 The flower stickers I purchased at Target years ago.