Welcome to 5th Grade 2012!

The countdown continues until the official first day of school! Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting several of my new students. They were so excited to come in and drop off their new school supplies. I had to convince a few to wait until the first day to completely unpack! 

When thinking about organizing my classroom over the summer, I knew I wanted to adjust the look and feel of my library. Last year, the books were all over the back wall and it was kind of a hot mess. I wanted to focus on one corner of the room and make it the hot spot of the classroom. I talked a little more in depth about my library here. 

I swapped out my desks for fancy TABLES! The tables open up the room tremendously. 

I'm very excited about all of my back to school bulletin boards this year. 

My first bulletin board illustrates different types of maps - a nice combination of science and social 

studies. 

Of course, I had to include Spiderman. YOU are destined for Greatness in 5th Grade!

The calendar area has our daily schedule, date, Captain's name, and a helpful reminder for me. :)

Do you notice that big blank wall? I'm reserving it for our soon to be made anchor charts. Right now, I have our procedures hanging proudly to practice. 

My cabinets are filled to the brim with extra school supplies, dictionaries, construction paper, and some junk. This is the area of the classroom where students turn in their homework AND tally points for our seat cushions. 

Similar to last year, I left a large open space in front of the SmartBoard for group time. I am a big fan of rallying the troops to the front of the room and then breaking out to our tables. 

 Here's another little hub of the classroom. Students can drop off notes to me in the blue basket, grab band aids and nurses passes, find lunch envelopes and whatnot in the white basket. 

I have rain gutters to hold brand-spankin' new books I bought for the classroom. Many of them were recommendations from the awesome literacy conference I attended. 

I stuck magnets behind scrabble tiles and let the kids spell different things throughout the year. I just noticed the nice little message left from May! I'll keep that one up for awhile! 

 This is real life: my desk is ALWAYS a mess. I can't even pretend to disguise it. 

This is by far one of the BEST ideas a friend gave me. Stick all of the extra copies in an "Extra Copies Basket". Then, if students need an extra - they know exactly where to look. 

In addition to the heaping piles of papers for students to pick up, I left everyone a little treat!  

My door is full of delightful little apples with names from my homeroom kiddos! 

Have you posted a tour of your classroom? Leave me a comment and let me know so I can check it out.

Enjoy your weekend!