A Peek at My Classroom!

If you have been reading my blog, you know that I made the decision to decorate my classroom this year in apple colors. You might not know, though,  that I am an aspiring quilter as well! Not as skilled as my Mom, but nonetheless, I love to see how pieces come together to make something beautiful. A piece of knowledge that I learned in my early quilting classes is that you pick 3 main colors for your quilt and then add one color as your accent color. I was told that your accent color is fun because you can place it randomly throughout your quilt disregarding the otherwise strict patterning. So..... my main colors are red, yellow, and green. My accent color is black and as you can see from the pictures, I played with black quite a bit in my classroom! I do not follow strict rules when it comes to decorating. I decorate in a way that makes me feel happy with the hope that my color decisions will make my students happy, too!
Here is the view as you enter my classroom:
You see that I have a blue beach umbrella! I purchased this in Michigan not knowing what I was going to do with my classroom. It does not follow my color scheme, but you can see that there are plenty of other blues in the picture, so it works!

Here is a picture of the reading center. I wrapped the pole of the umbrella with black polka dotted wrapping paper and tied a black polka dotted ribbon around the pole. I made the stools from locker crates. My husband cut a piece of wood to fit the tops and I covered the wood with a pillow and fabric. If you follow Pinterest, I am sure that you have seen these little stools!
I wanted polka dotted curtains so badly for my 3 windows, but I could find none to buy locally and when I went on line, they were TOO expensive! So I purchased black polka dotted wrapping paper from our local party store. I measured how long I wanted them to be and doubled that amount. Then I wrapped the paper around a spring rod and secured by stapling border to the bottom of the wrapping paper. Voila! Instant curtains - for cheap! I stapled red border to one paper curtain, green to another and yellow to the last one. The picture is not very, good..... I took it during the afternoon and the sun was shining through the window making it look darker than it really was. The TEN that you see is the last part of the word KINDERGARTEN that is posted above my windows.  (I am thinking that I saw this wrapping paper idea somewhere on Pinterest, but I cannot find the link at all! I'm sorry!)
 When I was in the fabric department at Walmart, I noticed these fabric bolts that were already smocked that you could sew together to make a sundress for a little girl. Hmmm...... my mind started working and I purchased 2 styles that were in my classroom colors. I put industrial strength Velcro around the bottom of my easel and around my listening cart and wrapped the fabric around them. I am happy with how they cover up an otherwise drab piece of furniture!
Here are my math tubs. Unfortunately they are a bit squeezed into a corner. I may have to change that arrangement if it gets to be too much of a hassle for my little ones! I found the labels for the tubs here.
My little Chicka Boom Boom corner looks so sad! That is because I use that wall for anchor charts and since I have not introduced any charts yet, it looks very bare!
Here is a quick bulletin board that I put up in my corner. It says "What a Sweet Bunch" and I made lollipops for each child.  I cut the circles with my Cameo and added a straw for a stick and tied a ribbon around the straw. I quickly drew some little people to add to the board, but they really do not have to be there! I attached names and pictures to the bulletin board which are not present in this picture. The other picture is from my sweet kindergarten co-worker, Lisa's classroom. Her board is MUCH cuter than mine! She told me NOT to give her credit, though, because she found the idea on Pinterest! So if this is your idea, Lisa says "Thank you!" :)
Have you seen these cute listening posters? They are SO cute and so applicable to teaching proper listening skills! Here is the link to them from First Grade Fever. They are free!
I have a really sturdy cubby stand, but through the years, it has gotten a bit beaten up! This year, I tried to "pretty" it up by adding red shelf lining and attached an apple window valance to the bottom to hide some not so pretty tubs. I used Velcro to attach the valance and secured the shelf lining with a large binder clips. I plan to attach name labels to the clips which is a super idea that I got from The Organized Classroom blog! You can find the link to that idea here! You can see the old labels still attached to the outside of each cubby. That REALLY bothers me, so I will probably take some of my free time (Hmmmmm..... what is free time???) and try to remove them later in the week! The cubby really looks pretty in the classroom; the picture isn't really doing it justice, though!
This is part of my library. We are doing Daily 5 this year, so my books need be re-organized. Even though there are tons of classroom library bin labels available, I think every teacher organizes in their own unique way, so I ended up creating my own labels. I just found the pictures I wanted to use, imported them into a power point document, added a pretty label, printed them out, and attached to the bins. If you would like a nice link to library bin labels, though, here is a link for some from Pocketful of Centers. Don't you love it when Kohl's department store has a promotion on a children's book and a matching stuffed animal? That is where the animals in the picture came from except for Spot the dog. He is very old and I am not really sure where he came from! I allow my students to read to the animals and then they must be returned to the library.
Here is my religion bulletin board. It was inspired by Debbie Clement's Pinterest board called SUN. Here is the link. This is the only time of the year when I exclusively create my bulletin boards. For the rest of the school year, I showcase the work of my students!
This is the other side of my classroom. I just purchased the cart with the colored drawers after attending the workshop with Deanna Jump. I am so excited about using it! We will be keeping our construction paper sorted into the drawers and HOPEFULLY this will eliminate the mess of paper EVERYWHERE in the classroom!  The reading table is filled with the welcome gifts that I gave my students when I met them on Monday. Click the picture to take you to the link to this freebie!
Here is my Word Wall. We display all our sight words at the beginning of the year and highlight them with a Word Frame as they are introduced.
This is my door decoration. I blocked out the kids' face and names. They are attached to red apples.
This is my birthday bulletin board. The picture doesn't really show how cute this board is, though! I glued cupcake wrappers to a pretty cardboard cake plate and used tissue paper to make the cupcakes. Unfortunately, the cupcakes look like ice cream cones in this picture! Oh well!
So that is my room for now! The kiddos arrive on Thursday morning, so things will definitely change once the new year begins!

Don't forget to link up to Blog Hoppin' to peek into some really awesome classrooms! Also, Denise from Sunny Days also has some GREAT classroom ideas on her blog, too! Link up with her to find them!


Until next time! Blessings, Cindy