Happy Days in First Grade

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August 20, 2016 · Leave a Comment

My New Classroom Reveal

Classroom Decoration· classroom organization· Classroom Reveal

This summer was definitely one of  the busiest summers of my life! With ending out the school year to selling our house to moving into a new one to planning and throwing our babies’ birthday parties to job-hunting to packing my classroom of seven years and to moving into and decorating my classroom! It has been such an adventure, but I am so glad everything has settled down and after 30+ hours working on my classroom, it is ready to be revealed!!!

In ten years of teaching, this is my first year ever have round tables!  Can you believe it?!  I have had individual desks in the past, so I am very excited to try this new arrangement!  With limited storage space in the classroom, a lot of the supplies this year will be community property and will be refilled as needed.  No more cleaning out students’ desks and finding work and old pencils and crayons from way back when! 🙂

My goal for classroom decoration has always been engaging and welcoming without being distracting. With that in mind, I spruced up our big white board with some fun border and sectioned it out for our weekly student-generated anchor charts.  One of my sweet teammates was kind enough to let me borrow her light blue masking tape when I ran out of border.  Who knew masking tape came in different colors?!!! And of course, I had to bring out my Boho Chic Birdies from my previous classroom along with an inspirational quote for my sweet students!  Please don’t excuse the note on the board, it was meant for Meet-the-Teacher Night. 🙂

Right behind my reading table is a HUGE white wall that was calling out to be decorated.  I brainstormed all summer what to do with it, until I found my Pinspiration (inspiration from Pinterest)!  Using scrapbooking paper and self-adhesive burlap letters, I created a vocabulary word wall for my students.  Each time we learn new content words, I will ask my students to write them on big sticky notes that we will be stick them onto our wall!  I’m so excited to see how our wall will be filled up by the end of the year! 

The previous teacher in my classroom left a lot of these book boxes that just so happened fit perfectly in my cubbies! In addition, I was lucky enough to snag up lots and lots of new books for my library from teachers on my campus! That right there is called TEACHER JACKPOT, ladies and gentlemen! 🙂 I then organized the books for genres along with match colors of the book boxes and VOILA! 

Right by my reading table/teacher worker is a little bulletin board I made to personalize my classroom and help my students get to know a little about my family and me.  As a child, I’ve always loved hearing stories and seeing pictures of my teachers’ families.  It always made them so much more relatable and helped me to see them not as teachers, but also people who have likes and interests and a family like me! 
Here is another big board that I have sectioned out into my Interactive Word Wall, I Can Board, and Student Work Display Board.  A teammate of mine suggested for me to tape a pad of sticky notes to the bottom of the board so that students can copy down a word and then big it back to their desk!  What a great idea?! 
Since I am teaching STEM, I thought I would dedicate a small board to it!  This will definitely come in handy as reminders and review as we go through the design process over and over again this year!

And here are some ways I am organizing manipulatives and students work this year! Each child is assigned to a number according to the roster which he or she will keep all year.  After writing their name on each assignment, students will also be asked to write their number.  When I am done checking their work, I can simply place it in their cubby to take home afterwards.
Thank you so much for stopping by! I’m so excited to share my new adventure with you as I know it will be such a great year of learning and growth for BOTH my students and me!

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Classroom Reveal 2017-2018
FARMHOUSE SHIPLAP CLASSROOM DECOR IDEAS
All About Martin Luther King, Jr: Teaching Ideas and Activities
Previous Post: « How to Make Meet-the-Teacher Night Fun & Stress-free
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Hello There!

My name is Ha. I am a Primary STEM teacher from Texas, a passionate educator of little ones, a teacher-author of interactive educational resources, a lover of Makerspace and STEM, a mother to two, a wife to my high school sweetheart and a forever learner. Welcome to my site!

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happydaysinfirstgrade

🍎 Primary STEM Teacher
👩🏻 Mommy, Crafter, & Traveler
👩🏻‍💻 TpT K-2 Author
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📧 happydaysinfirstgrade@gmail.com
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Ha - Teacher Crafter Traveler
The best way to a teacher’s heart is with coffee The best way to a teacher’s heart is with coffee and easy gift ideas. ☕️ 🛍 At least for me, that is. 🤣

Double tap if you love coffee too! Link in bio for this Valentine Gift tag and snag up the bundle for 120 tags for the entire year to save! 💕 Bit.ly/FebruaryGiftTags
Nothing makes my heart happier than an organized c Nothing makes my heart happier than an organized classroom. ♥️

Having an organized and tidy space where everything that I need has its own space, frees me up to do the important things like teaching and meeting in small groups with my firsties. 🍎📚

I also love how the kids know where to get supplies when they need them- no questions asked. 

Plus, it also gives them pride, comfort, and ownership in up-keeping our learning space together.
🥰

If you need ways to organize your classroom, I have bundled these products together for extra savings. 

Link in bio to grab them now. http://bit.ly/RusticShiplapDecorBundle
When Cupid’s arrows glow in the dark, who wouldn When Cupid’s arrows glow in the dark, who wouldn’t want to shoot them, right?! 💘 🥰

I love how hot gluing these heart confetti to little glow sticks made these little Valentine presents even more fun and festive!!! 🥰

Link in bio for this Valentine Gift tag and snag up the bundle for 120 tags for the entire year to save! 💕 Bit.ly/FebruaryGiftTags
We’re about to kickstart our next Writing and Re We’re about to kickstart our next Writing and Reading unit on American inventors. We usually start out with male inventors, then Asian-American, Hispanic, and women inventors too!!!! 🤩🥳🥰✏️📚

When planning, I try to be very intentional by including a list of diverse inventors. I want my students to learn, be inspired, but most importantly feel represented.

After learning about both female and male American inventors, I then provide them with another list of diverse inventors that are not as well known. From this list, they choose one to do their Hole-in-Poster project. 

It’s one of my favorite projects and always makes my heart so happy! Swipe to see more and check out my lil’ man’s project when he was in first grade! 

Link in bio to grab the signs and printables. 📚✨

https://bit.ly/32ev4BM
Next week will be our 21st week of school and 18th Next week will be our 21st week of school and 18th week of in-person school. 

Our first three weeks were virtual and then it’s been in-person since. 

Due to our numbers, one teacher was able to stay remote while the rest of the team went in-person.

I had so many feelings as I welcomed the kids back to school, but I knew in my heart that teaching in-person was my JAM and for those  kids who were going back, they needed me and our little space so so much. ♥️

While I came back in-person, my own kids were blessed enough to stay home with daddy. The truth is, they had good days learning remotely, they also had some really hard days and poor daddy tried his best while working from home. 😭👨🏻‍💻

So after much deliberation and praying, our kids are now back in-person with face masks during school hours and  have been doing so so well. 

We are so grateful that they are being loved on and cared for by their amazing teachers, who are also my sweet friends, and getting to know more friends in their class! 

Plus, they are thrilled to hang out in my classroom before and after school again. 🤣🤩 #teacherskids

Are you still virtual or are you back in-person? 🍎
🤩 🥳 GIVEAWAY is CLOSED !!! 🤩 🥳 A winne 🤩 🥳 GIVEAWAY is CLOSED !!! 🤩 🥳 A winner will be announced soon.

Y’all!!! 🤩🥰 I’m sooo incredibly excited to let you know that I will be presenting for the @getyourteachon Level 🆙 Virtual Conference with all of the these amazing and gifted educators!!!! 🤩🥳👩🏻‍💻 

I’m so so so excited that I am giving away 1 FREE Ticket to a lucky teacher!!!! 🥳🍎

1. Follow me and @getyourteachon ! 

2 Like this post.

3. Tell me how you want to grow as a teacher this year!

4. Tag a few teacher friends for extra entries!

Giveaway will close Tuesday, 1/26th at 8 PM Central Time! 

Read below for more details! To sign up now, click on the link in bio! https://bit.ly/3pbzFiN

What is Level Up?
• A Get Your Teach On Event
• For K-5 grade teachers
• You join a specific focus track (ELA or math) designed to instruct the power standards in your specific
grade level.
• Provides strategies for virtual, hybrid, and face to face instruction.

What problem does it solve?
• Addresses specific pain points that are frustrating or difficult to teach.
• Provides explicit training on how to instruct and help students master these challenging and often confusing content standards.
• Saves the teacher time by receiving a quick training and then the necessary resources to effectively plan, implement into the classroom the next day, and assess mastery whether teaching virtually or through face to face instruction.
Other important things:
• Micro sessions (15-25 minutes) so they aren’t sucking up valuable time. We know time is precious.
• Each session is a one stop shop and includes: a 15-25 minute workshop or model lesson, a lesson plan that will help you break down the standard, printable resources to help you implement the instructional strategies, and an assessment to help you evaluate your students’ progress!
• You can purchase tickets for one focus track (math or ELA) or both for your grade level.
• Access throughout the lifetime of the platform.
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