The Big Roundup

Here are a couple of the after shots that I promised you.

The counter:

All the bins with the blue lids are from the Dollar Store. If you haven't checked out your local Dollar Store lately, GO! NOW!! They have an amazing amount of teaching supplies and other goodies. I will show off some of my other finds on later posts.

Bins at the far left are color coded for my five new work groups. I finally gave up trying to run three work groups... it was just too many kids. Nine students does NOT a small group make. Now I am planning five groups of five, and have color coded their materials here. The leader of each group will be in charge of retrieving and distributing the materials for their group. More about this later.

The bins in the middle hold Math materials. They are not labeled because I can see right through them - a real time saver! I chose bins with lids because this class is extremely tactile and I was finding Math materials EVERYWHERE. I have made two bins of each material because generally we do Math in two teams. (I plan to call the Math teams the Cougars and the Cheetahs - our school mascots.)

The little yellow folders stapled to the wall above the counter show pictures of each student with their third grade Buddy. Do you have Buddies at your school? This year I have teamed up with my daughter's class and we have had so much fun doing projects, reading and running with our Big Buddies. It gives the third graders a chance to be leaders and set good examples for the Kinders. And it gives my students a positive role model that they come to really idolize... someone to listen to and to teach them besides boring old me.

Another after:

Sorry for the blurry picture here... this is my teacher and parent work area and as you saw in my last post it was a complete disaster. I stopped putting things away correctly and I was using the back wall to display art project samples that made the whole area look messy. It didn't take too long to put this back together and I am really looking forward to using this space to plan lessons, prep for activities, and fill up my daily baskets.

My dear daughter made a template of the Stop sign for me, and I have been posting those little buggers everywhere I need to have "adults only" access. Did I mention this is a very tactile class??? Let me tell you the first couple of weeks these kids were like locusts in my room, I don't believe there was a nook or cranny anywhere that has been unexplored. I think these visual reminders will work beautifully!

If you would like a copy of the template, please leave a comment and I will happily email it... they come four to a page.