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Classroom

Welcome to my 2016-2017 classroom reveal!

I am not the kind to keep a classroom the same every year.  I always say I'm not going to change things and I always end up switching things up.  So, out of eight classrooms I've put together this year's classroom is by far my favorite!  Next summer I really won't redo things.  Maybe, ha!

This summer our classrooms walls were painted gray and the shelves were painted black.  It just gave the classrooms just a clean feeling to have fresh paint.  I like the simplicity of the black and gray.

Last December I decided to transition my classroom from a traditional seating classroom to a flexible seating classroom.  My kids love it and I do too.  I still have three desks in the classroom and have chairs stashed in the corner in case anyone needs a desk and chair.  Of course the desks are readily available in the need that I need to bring some back in.  


The numbers, days of the week, and months of the year on the wall came from Hope King at Elementary Shenanigans


This walls houses my student's backpacks and a bunch of not fun stuff like filing cabinets, organizing shelves, and a refrigerator.  The cute lights came from the Target dollar spot. 


As you can see, one of my flexible seating options are yoga balls.  I wasn't a huge fan of yoga balls last year because they are a little tempting for the kids, even though they know how they are supposed to use them.  They get tempted to go a little out of control on the bouncing.  This year a coworker told me about the gray one at Walmart.  It has sand in the bottom so it stays grounded a little better, but still gives them the freedom to move around. This will be my Word Work area for Daily 5.  



This, by far, is my most favorite spot in the whole room...my book nook!  I've never had a classroom library that I loved, but I love this one.  This whole area is practically furnished by IKEA.  The couch, orange pillows, orange rug, and the two bookshelves all came from IKEA.  I also have two black polka dotted rugs in the photo above that came from there as well...for $20!

I've wanted a book cover banner for a few years, but never got around to making one.  This year, with the help of my mom, I finally got it done.  I used the tutorial from Maria at KinderCraze, but did mine a little differently.  I will have a blog post up soon on how to make the banner with a few adjustments.

I'm the type that likes everything matching and so my two bookshelves drive me a little crazy.  I purchased book baskets from Really Good Stuff several years ago.  With  my growing book collection, I needed new baskets, but I didn't want to spend the money at the time on a whole shelf worth of baskets.  In comes Big Lots.  Someone had posted about the book baskets at Big Lots.  They had a coral color that I loved!  Between my mother and I we went to six stores to get enough baskets.  Unfortunately they didn't have enough coral so I supplemented with gray.  I'm hoping next year I can get some that coordinate with the coral ones and retire the others.

Have I mentioned I love my book nook?

And the couch?  Makes me want to take a nap just thinking about it!


Another favorite area of my room is the this orange bookshelf.  I have seen these floating all around on Pinterest and Instagram, but due to other purchases for my classroom, I haven't had the classroom funds to purchase one.  Last summer I was told about a state surplus warehouse that houses the furniture that state agencies, universities, hospitals, etc. are getting rid of....and it's SUPER cheap!  When I went, guess what I found?  This shelf....for $15.  I originally purchased it to put in my son's room because at the time I didn't have room in my classroom so I painted it orange.  When I didn't have any luck finding another one this summer I moved it to my classroom...it's much more useful there because my First Graders don't just use it for a ladder!


Another flexible seating option I have in my classroom are Big Joe bean bag chairs.  One of these was donated by a grandparent of a student and the other one I picked up at Walmart for $25.  The kids love the bean bag chairs, but they tend to go flat and it's a pain to refill them!  I have learned that shredded paper is a lot easier than the little Styrofoam balls, but it takes a TON of paper.


This chair is new to my classroom this year, but my kids are loving it.  It is very comfortable! The girls especially love it.  I've even found myself sitting in it a time or two.  You can use your imagination on what happened the first time I sat in it and the legs were not straightened out all the way....


This Big Joe bean bag chair was one of the original flexible seating options I had.  This chair was donated to my classroom through a Donor's Choose project.  It is rather large and the kids tend to sprawl out all over it! 


I added this Adirondack chairs to the room this year.  I had my eye on these all summer.  They were at Target for $5!  A teacher's dream.  The only problem was that I could never found the colors I wanted.  Finally, on a trip to Dallas this summer for a conference, I found two orange.  They were the last two they had!  I was hoping for three, but two worked out just fine.  The little black table also came from IKEA and it was $7!  I returned home from the conference (the AMAZING Get Your Teach On Conference with Deanna Jump and Hope King) with a carload between Target and IKEA! 


Well, that's a wrap for this year's classroom. Hope you enjoyed visiting my little space! 

2 comments

  1. The room came together wonderfully!! I know you will have a great year.

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  2. You have a super awesome classroom!!!! I LOVE it!
    I hope you have a wonderful 2016-2017 school year!! :)
    Jennifer

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