Classroom Reveal 2014-15

After a long week of working in my classroom, it's finally done! Well.. done enough for the first day of school that is. I can't wait for my students to see the classroom they will spend their last year of elementary school in!

Here's what the room looked like on August 20th:

I kept this picture large so you could see the pipe and outlet that somebody thought would fit perfectly on a bulletin board... I was very, very annoyed when I saw that. 

As usual, it looked pretty bland, but the room was pretty big with lots of room for storage. Anyway, here's what I did with the room last week:

Our school theme for the year is science, so of course, my door had to be science themed! I covered it in navy blue fabric because it was horrible and grey with paint chipping off everywhere. Fortunately, the other side is a lovely blue freshly painted over the summer!

Here is what my students will see on Tuesday morning when they walk in the room.

I made the two milk crate benches a few weeks ago with lots of help from my dad. They just so happened to match perfectly with the colours in my classroom! To make it even more of a perfect match, I made sure to put the green textbooks in the green bench and the blue textbooks in the blue bench. Call me crazy, but I love organizing things by colour. 

I would love it if I could put a rug in the reading nook, but our school board doesn't allow us to have rugs, pets or plants in our rooms due to allergies. I didn't let that stop me from using mats and fake plants! : )

I have most of my smaller math games on this back shelf, along with a few tools that my students may need to solve problems.

The green pockets on the wall are made with sheet protectors and construction paper. I will use them to display the students' work all year. It will be less bright when they have writing pieces in them because the green will only be a small border around their work.

What's that you ask? Where is that ugly pipe? I managed to camouflage it with white and black duct tape. It's also partially hidden behind the computer monitors, so I'm pretty happy about that.

If you're looking at their desks and wondering, I like to stick baskets on them because otherwise, they are constantly looking for a pencil (especially with these desks!) I'm not a huge fan of the tennis balls, but I guess they will make it quieter.

Here's the front of the class, where my beautiful whiteboard and SmartBoard meet : ). Can you tell that I'm ecstatic about having a SB in my class?! I also found out that the chalkboard to the right of my SB is not magnetic.. What is the point of a chalkboard if you can't stick magnets to it!? I had pretty good timing though, because I asked the caretakers if there were any extra whiteboards a few minutes after the teacher down the hall got rid of one. It was on a big, bulky stand, but they took it off and screwed it to the useless chalkboard. Now, I have the perfect spot to write homework and to write our morning math problems!

Finally, I'll show you my almost completed teacher's corner.

I finally got the courage this year to laminate my interactive synonym poster. It made it through being laminated twice and attacked with an exact-o knife!

I was contemplating whether or not I should share this photo because it shows how unorganized my bookshelf is. It's sorted enough to be easy to use, so that's okay with me for a few weeks. Soon enough, I will tackle it and be able to sleep at night : P .

Well, that's the end of my classroom tour. I hope my sixth graders will like it!

If you made it all the way to the bottom, congrats!