I hope everyone's school year has been going smoothly thus far. I just started school this past week and I have been having a blast with my new class. This year I am teaching a combination class of Kindergarten and First grade. I have taught combo classes before, and although sometimes it's a little more planning and work, I love it - teaching really is more about differentiation and teaching to the individual child. I am able to do that with my small class size of 10 :)
Here are some pictures of my room!
Here is our calendar area - Amazing products from Georgia Grown Kiddos (Calendar set), Good Enough Teacher (Calendar pieces), and First Grade Parade (Schedule cards.)
My classroom library is continuing to grow. I feel so blessed to have great teacher friends and parents (and find great sales!) to continue to grow my library. I am a bargain shopper and found all of my bins from the dollar store. The red bin shown below contains read aloud books and informational texts that we will use together.
I created my own book bin labels to meet the needs of my classroom
library. I combined different authors and topics to fit all of the books in a limited amount of bins.
It took me a while, but I finally found 10 book bins at Target in all of the same color :) The ones at Really Good Stuff are amazing too (especially when you can pick the color(s) you want!) but they were only $3 at Target, and I am not paying for shipping. It's all about saving money :)
My word wall is completed by Erica Bohrer's amazing product and an adorable turquoise maze border from Creative Teaching Press. Do you notice the black background? I saved money by using a dollar store table cloth instead of bulletin board paper. It worked great, I just have to be careful of tears :)
My math area includes where my math centers are, and different supplies such as shapes, unifix cubes, dice, tools for measurement, and more. It is important that I always review how to properly use these materials with my kiddos - they have been great with them and love to use them! On the bottom shelves (3 shelves stacked together to make one! Awesome idea from K-2 is Splendid!) I needed more room for supplies, so as you can see we keep the scissors and glue there as well.
I made almost all of the labels shown in my classroom pictures using a cute border from Jason's Online Classroom and Kimberly Geswein's font "Beneath Your Beautiful Chunk"
I have to share with you that I won the absolute best giveaway I could've won this summer. Through Third Grade Love, I entered a contest (like I would do any great contest) and won the opportunity to use SO MUCH of their upcoming back to school supplies - borders, stickers, posters, and even their GNOME math program. Heather from Creative Teaching Press was so amazing in helping me pick 3 additional prizes besides the back to school supplies. I am telling you, I felt like I won the lottery. And the people at Creative Teaching Press could not be nicer and want to help educators more. I have talked with different companies, but they have been incredible to work with.
With a smaller classroom, I couldn't use all of the products at once, but they are going to definitely be put to great use - and I even shared some with my co-workers. Thank you again, Creative Teaching Press!
You can find this adorable birthday pack HERE
GNOME math display for your grade level found HERE
Our Back to School bash in August was a success - I made these "Welcome back" goodie bags and customized them to meet the needs of my kids - I am glad I am getting better at creating things so they are personalized for my cuties!
Here is my bulletin board door! We love Pete the Cat in my room ;) You can find this adorable product HERE from First Grade is Fantabulous - I love that I could customize it with their names. The wreath was made by my dear friend Georgie, who's kids I have been working with for years!
I love our new bulletin board outside our room.. I found these cute All About Me iPads and made up a cute saying to go along with them!
I hope you enjoyed my back to school blog post :) I love comments/questions, so leave them if you have them! Here is my e-mail too if you ever need anything - lauralove2teach@gmail.com
Happy Teaching!
