Kindergarten Classroom Set-Up...Making Progress!!

Hi Everyone,
If you're a fellow TpT seller, I hope the sale went well for you!  Last week, I posted pictures of my classroom set-up and, after about 2/3 of a day of set-up work, it was still looking extremely unfinished.  I decided to move almost every single thing in my classroom this summer, plus categorize my trade books and finishing leveling my library, so that's why it's taken so long for me to set up (and I do like to chat with other teachers!).

Here are some updated pictures after I've worked today and yesterday in my classroom!

 My library is almost all set! I just need to get my book bin labels on!  Can you see where I was SHORT ONE stinkin' book bin! Ugh back to IKEA...

Here is the other side of the library. I am going to spray paint the red bench lime green to match my room.

 I keep all the books I have multiple copies of in my partner reading book bins.  They are leveled by a range (A-C, D-F, G-I, J-L, M+).  I still need to get labels on the totes.

 This leveled shelf is double-sided. The rest of my leveled books are on the back of the shelf. I used Scholastic Book Wizard to level most of the books.

 My choice time bins house wooden blocks, plastic animals, felt boards, magnet play sets, a marble run, and a pretend vet clinic. I try to have choice time every day at the end of the day. It ends up being 3-4 times per week usually!

 My puzzle cupboard needs some help still!

 A big thanks to my sister for hanging my word wall today!

 Click here to see my Frog Theme Classroom Pack.

 I almost forgot to include the picture of the cute frog my sister made for the top of my whiteboard. I am going to add our class rules around the frog.

We are having the students and their parents in for assessment conferences prior to school starting-tomorrow and Thursday. I have info folders ready along with my Meet Your Teacher book, a parent questionnaire, and some project samples for the year.

 Click Here to see my Meet Your Teacher EDITABLE Book on TpT!

I am hoping that my assessment conferences run smoothly and am excited to meet all of my new kiddos!

'Tis the Season! Link Up!

It's kind-of, almost, sort-of like Christmas for teachers...it's the back-to-school sale at Teachers Pay Teachers.  It's happening Sunday, August 18- Monday, August 19.

I am going to be a double-participant in this sale. I am hoping to sell some, but I'm also super excited to stock up on some clip art and fall products.  My wishlist is literally overflowing. It's actually on my to-do list to go through it and decide exactly what I want to purchase during the sale!

I've just finished up giving feedback on all of my recent TPT purchases (confession: I am now in the triple digits of units purchased, yikes!).  Remember, you can earn money towards your next purchase by leaving feedback on the units you purchase.  This sale is the perfect time to redeem all of your feedback points!

Here are some of my favorite products from my store that will be 28% off on Sunday and Monday. If you have questions about any of my TPT packs, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or email me! Click the images to learn more about each product.

Having a sale of your own?  Go ahead and grab this graphic to enter your own sale info on! Save it as a JPEG, insert into a PowerPoint slide, and put a text box over the white area to write in your own store info.

 Make sure you link your TPT store up to the linky below!!

Open House Idea

I am so excited that I was finally able how to figure out how to create an editable product for Teachers Pay Teachers!  I made an editable "Meet Your Teacher" book that's perfect for open house or the first week of school.

 I know that for me, open house is always hectic and there is never time to talk to each family for very long.  I always end up feeling like some families, especially the ones that don't visit school regularly, don't get to know me as well as I'd like.  Also, since I teach kindergarten, I want to make every effort to make sure children feel comfortable coming to my classroom on their very first day of school. Tonight and tomorrow (Aug 15 and 16, 2013), this pack is 50% off, which mean it's only $1.50! {CLICK HERE} to go to my TPT store to check out the preview and all of the included pages.

I edited the product (I wanted to make sure it worked well!) and made my own book for my open house that's coming up in about a week and a half.  Now you can see how the pages end up looking once they are edited with someone's own text and pictures.

I hope this will be a fun, successful idea for open house.  If you have any questions about this pack, please leave me a comment!

Classroom Set-Up in Progress!

Whew, what a busy but productive day!

I just got home from my first day of classroom set-up for the year. Our first day of school is not until September 3rd.  I missed the Blog Hoppin' link-up for Teacher Week yesterday since I couldn't get into my classroom to take pics, but I figured I would sneak in some pics today along with an organizational tip!

When you are looking at these pictures, please keep in mind that I've only put in about 5-6 hours of work so far and ALL of my classroom furniture was in the hallway when I started this morning! A HUGE thank you goes to my mom who spent four fabulous hours keeping me on track and helping me haul furniture today! I would have nothing done without her help! It's is definitely a work in progress and will be all week long!  I will post pics of the finished product next week.

This is the entrance into my room. If you've read my blog for awhile, you know that I work in an open space.  There is no actual door to my room! You just walk down a hallway/ramp and here you are! Off to the left is an accoridian door that opens into the library.  You are looking at my mailboxes. Underneath in the blue cupboard is puzzle storage (obviously some puzzles have not made their way into the cupboard yet!).

This is standing at the mailboxes looking into my room.  You can see that there is NO wall on this side of the room-just portable cupboards as a room divider.  I will be putting bulletin boards up on all of these cupboards-only had time to do one today!  In front of the tall cupboards are my book bins, math manipulatives, and art and writing supplies.

This is just a zoomed out view of the picture above--lots of work to do yet!

This is the "front" of my room.  I used to have my rug, easel, and calendar up here.  The problem was that the wall is one of those foldable temp. walls and could not support my Promethean Board. So, this year I put the meeting area in the back of my room by the Promethean Board.  The "front" of the room is now where my teacher table is, as well as my classroom library-which is hard to see in this picture. The bookshelves are behind the stack of red chairs.  I'm going to spray paint the red bench green to go with my green and yellow theme.

Here's a close-up of my Daily 5 choice board.  You can get this for free by going to my post about it. I still need to put up the clothespins with the kid's names on it!

Here is a closeup of my reading strategies board. I am going to add all of our strategy friends (Chunky Monkey, Stretchy Snake, etc) as we learn about them!

Here is my poor leveled library shelf. Looks like it needs some straightening!

The beginnings of a meeting area! Love that easel!

The other end of my meeting area.

As you can see, I have my work cut out for me this week!  Considering my room was totally empty at 9:00 this morning, I think I got a good chunk of work done today though.

Also, here is one small organization tip: make a prioritized to-do list instead of one mega list.  It really helps me to stay on track with what is important to get done immediately.  Otherwise, I tend to do the "fun" projects first and forget about really important things until the last minute.  Below is an example that I made for the coming week: