Week 2 Success!

We made it through our first FULL week of school AND Back to School Night and man am I exhausted!

Here are some things that happened this week in my room:

STRATEGIES LAB - At my school once a month we get to take our kids over to the strategies lab.  Basically this is game time for 45 minutes. BUT the games and activities that they do are all about critical thinking and higher level thinking.  I believe that most games are made by Think Fun Jr.  Here are some pictures of my kids in action:

We worked on the letters M and S this week.  We do a variety of activities over the week and on Friday we do our M/S flip book.  We are still in "training mode" where I model EVERYTHING for them so that in the coming weeks they can do these activities independent.

We put our first page in our interactive Social Studies notebook. The students reviewed the rules and acts of kindness in this activity.

We made our self portraits in science using mirrors...this were ADORABLE!!!

Along with the two letters (m and s) for the week we also work on a word a week.  We learned all about the word "I" and completed our first little book "My I Book"  They were so excited to "read" books their second week of kindergarten. :)

We started Math Stations...well kinda.  We introduced our math station chart! Which is HUGE! Most of the stations are just manipulatives for now.  Slowly over the next couple of weeks we will be adding more and more to these stations.

Wow I'm exhausted just re-living this through pictures. How was your week?!?

Christina Mauro

Products used in this post are the following:

Classroom Reveal 2014

Well it's Labor Day weekend which means kids start back up on Tuesday! So I guess it's time to show you what I've been working on the past couple of weeks at school!!!

At the end of the year (at my school) we have to pack up EVERYTHING!!!  So all materials are packed up and wrapped up so the custodians can come in and deep clean the room. We can't leave anything on the wall or bulletin boards. So needless to say it's quite an undertaking to get the room ready for my new batch of kinders.

Here are a few pics of what the room looked like when I went in a few weeks ago:

My kids came in a few days to "help out" :)

So now for the after pictures!!!  I do have to say that I LOVE my classroom this year! I'm excited to see how everything flows with my 25 little guys moving around next week.


Here is my classroom library and whole group area. We spend a decent amount of time in this area when doing read alouds, work on the SMARTBoard, morning message, sharing, etc.

These are pictures of SOME of my guided reading/small group materials that I have near my teacher table. TRYING to be really organized this year!

Here's what it looks like when the curtain is up:

My Writing Station! The I can posters are on half the board and the Back to School words are on the pocket chart to the right.

Here are the bins for the students to store their "stuff."  Each student will have a bin which is color coded to their team. They will keep there writing folders, poetry notebook, science/social studies notebooks, bag of books, math journal, unfinished work etc in these bins.

This is an area in the front of the room where we house our supplies and items that we frequent: supply caddies, daily journals, scrap buckets, dry erase boards, GLUE SPONGES etc.

This is the counter where I store all my monthly activities! I told you I'm trying to be organized! At the beginning of each month I go through and pick out all the goodies we are going to do so my assistant can prep them all up for us.  The smaller containers on top store teacher supplies. And of course our little fridge :)

The word wall!!!  I love my updated word wall! It's right behind my guided reading table and students can see it from anywhere in the classroom.

Classroom timeline - this is something new we are doing this year.  We are going to add topics and special days that we do throughout the year.  Great visual for me and the students to review things we have learned.

These are the cubbies where all our "stuff" to go home goes.

The boy and girl closets. This is wear they put their backpacks :)

I whipped these number posters up last week to hang above the closets. They are so cute!

Trying out the Super Improver Wall this year!!!  So excited to see how the kids take this on!

Calendar Math at it's finest! We have birthday cupcakes on top, ten frames to count the days of school, weather cards to chart the weather for the week and much more to be added every month.
FREEBIE Click the image below to get the ten frame to count the days in school.

Color posters in the front of the room

 Whole Brain Teaching Call Outs and my Reading bulletin board. This is where we will house anchor charts and quick reference of who our reading buddies are.

Focus wall for our letters and word of the week.

Write the Room - Here is where we keep our papers for write the room.

 Clip chart for behavior

 Classroom Jobs - each student has a new job each week.  We still have to take their picture and add them to popsicle sticks to put inside the pockets.

Mats for each student to use for reading workshop and stations.

Our Daily Schedule

 A couple other pictures of our whole group area.

 And of course our document camera and projector.

Station materials - this is where we keep our literacy and math stations.  There are two sides to this bookshelf (one for literacy and one for math.) Students will take the tub and go to their spot to work.
All those boxes that were on top of the closet are now GONE and put into those nice black bins! :) Happy teacher here!

A few panoramic shots care of my iPhone

Here's how I left the room on Friday...

Hope everything has or had a great first day back!!! :)

Christina Mauro

Here are some of the products that I used to decorate my classroom with links over to TpT:

Here are some FREEBIES that I used from some AWESOME sellers on TpT! Make sure you leave them feedback!