School is starting! UPDATED!

School starts in a little over a week. I feel so much more prepared this year than I did last year. Last year I was starting a new school, new grade level, in a new town, with a new 5 week old baby. Let's just say I was far from prepared. But I am ready this year. I know the ropes and know what to expect and had more time to get ready. I don't usually get into "themes" for classrooms, but my team...actually our whole hall way....is doing a western theme. It's been fun getting ready. So here are a few pics....

my door. I will write the student's names on the little bandanas. I have 22 of them this year!!!

my classroom. my mom made the curtains and Jeff cleaned my windows for the first time in probably 50 years. It was really gross.

my reading center and "All About Me" board

this is "my corner." This is where I keep all my 'stuff' and where I pull small groups of kiddos to work on stuff with.

I got a little too happy with the glue gun. Practically EVERYTHING in my room is held up by hot glue. That stuff is amazing!

This is my pathetic little home center. You see someone basically stole my home center. Well I had already bought all the toys for it (dishes, baby doll, etc.). So I thought, "By gosh we are still having a home center!" So that desk is the kitchen table and that little shelf is the stove and counter top. Hey...you work with what ya got!

I'm quite proud of my little stove!

My calendar and such. I'm quite obsessed with pocket charts. I can think of a million uses for them!

Well I lost a home center but gained this really cool easel. A teacher left and I inherited this. It has really cool organizational tub thingy's and a book rack on the back. It's quite multi-purpose.

This is my color change system for discipline. Buffalo bucks is my reward system. I give them bucks for good behavior. Once they get 10 'bucks' they can buy a reward (something from my treasure box or a pickle...which is quite popular) On the rest of the doors is my word wall and the kids put their backpacks behind the doors. I put the rulers through the handles to train my kids to shut the dang doors! (That is just a small pet peave of mine)


This is my boy's bathroom. I try to keep that door closed as much as possible because it smells horrendous in there. I guess little boys can't aim very well at this age...I don't know. See the little green boot? One side is green and says 'go' and the other side is red and says 'stop.' This is to tell them if it is occupied or not. I had to start doing that last year because I did not realize that kindergartener's lives would fall apart if someone walked in on them. I literally had another teacher walk into my room to see if everything was okay because when of my girl's screamed like she was being murdered when another girl accidentally walked in on her. They are crazy...

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UPDATE!!!! ok so after looking at my classroom and these pictures a million times....we just now noticed the funniest thing! If you look at the picture of "my corner" you will see that in the upper right hand corner of the pic are some alphabet letters on the wall. O and P are backwards!!! I have never laughed so hard in my life when I noticed that....especially cause Jeff is the one who put it up! It's even worse that I didn't catch until now. HAHAHA!