Back to School and a Freebie

Oh. my. word. I am sooooo TIRED. But. . . I must say that I love my new group of firsties.  We learned rules, rules and more rules the first week and this week we tried our hands at centers {so I can work with reading groups} and so far so good.  This group catches on pretty quick.

I'll take you on a little tour of the classroom.  (It won't look this clean again until next school year :)

You see that door in the back of my room. {pictured below} 

 Drives me crazy -NEVER closes. 

 BTW - check out the shape of my student desks.   There is not a good way to arrange those things.  They are also very heavy. And - the silver legs at the bottom are always coming out.  These were not designed for wigglers and let's be honest, first graders are wigglers and movers and hummers and noise makers and talkers and well, you get the point but I seem to be digressing . . . 

 

 

 

I had parents help sort supplies at Meet the Teacher and on the first day of school.  I had a basket for all supplies:

 

 

 

I put all our specials on these cute little clocks and then stapled them on the wall by our clock.  Even though this looks like it helps the kids, it is really up there to help me remember. 

 

 

 

My calendar math area:

(I do calendar math on the promethean board now so I shrunk my huge math area down into this smaller area and just put the minimum basics here.)

 

 

 

My two student computers are pictured below.  My teacher desk is behind the student computers. 

 

I came up with a new way  to manage those who need to take an AR test. {pinterest inspired, of course}   Everyone has an owl and they will move it to the cookie sheet when they are ready to take a test.  I will train them to push the owls up and put theirs at the bottom of the list.

(I got the magnetic cookie sheet at the Dollar Tree)

 

You could also use this same idea for:

1)  Attendance - everyone who is present can move their owls to the cookie sheet

2)  Lunch count - put a picture of lunch box and school lunch tray at the top of the cookie sheet  and have students move their owl under their lunch choice  (I will post a picture of this soon - the pieces for this are included in the freebie below)

 

You can grab yourself a copy of the owls and titles for the three choices shown above:    HERE

 

If you think of something else that is super cute to do with these, I would love for you to share!