Setting Up My First Classroom!

I was busy, busy in July (before I left for the summer) and again at the end of August setting up my very first classroom. As you can see, it was a bit squishy trying to fit seating for 31 little year 3 (grade 2) bodies in my room. 

The silhouette pictures hanging from my ceiling were made on our transition day in July. My new students each wrote a 'self' poem inside the shape of the head and then drew pictures of things they like (or just designs) around the outsides. They looked very cute once all hung up! I double sided the pictures and clipped them up with colourful clothes pegs. 

More desks!
Also, the orange board ready for our classroom rules and children's leaves to create a class tree.

Hard to see, but on the far wall next to the window is our class marble jar (picture). We earn marbles for our class for being excellent as a whole class (each of the marbles has a specific behaviour such as, being complemented by an adult, doing it the first time, working silently, etc.). I will fish it out and take a better picture later.

"We are ravenous readers" reading ladder. Children recorded their reading in their reading logs, and got to move their name up the leaves each time they finished a book.

Our 'Space Race' behaviour management system. Children move up the board for good behaviour and earn house points. Children who reach the 'Golden Globe' planet at the top are sent home with a special certificate for top notch behaviour. Consequently, children move across the board for undesirable behaviour. The first planet to the right is a warning, followed by a timeout in class, a timeout in a partner class, and finally being sent to the head teacher. 

This resource was created by my very lovely coworker, Mrs. T.

My tiny classroom library! This classroom did not have a class library prior to my arrival. It was very important to me that my students had a place to find an interesting book to read within the classroom. Aside from the dictionaries on the bottom and part of the middle row, and a small number of topic related books, the rest of these books I brought with me on the airplane from Canada. Our little library was small enough to separate into fiction, non-fiction, and topic books.

So, there is the whistle stop tour of my classroom from September 2014. If you have any questions about resources you have seen please leave a comment and I will get back to you!