My Classroom - The Brown Bag Teacher

This is the first year where I have stayed in the same room in the same grade. As I approached my room, I really wanted to make it more functional in terms of wall space. The physical space is almost identical to last year because honestly, it worked. With only minor tweaks being made to my room over the summer, I’ve had a hard time finding the motivation to share. I really do like our learning space but the lack of novelty was initially a struggle for me. So, 7 weeks in, here is our 1st grade learning space!

You’ll noticed there is no theme. Rather, clean lines, organized materials, and blue/green hints throughout our room. With lots of natural light and fantastic color-blocking provided by the district, I really don’t want to overwhelm the room with too much color or stuff.

Most of the rooms at our school are inset, so they have learning nooks outside. Our learning nook was blessed with a carpet and bean bags as a gift from my first 1st grade class! It makes the perfect space for parent volunteers and peer mentors to read with my 1st graders. Plus, our Astrobrigh’s student work display and bulletin boards are also in this space. I really do love this corner and wish I could teach in the nook. It’s so comfy!

Standing at my door, you’ll have this view. Our school is fairly new (we are in Year 4) and when it was built, we received high ceilings and lots of windows. Every classroom has two windows on the back wall and then, one long/thin window near the ceiling (i.e. the blur of light in the back of the photo). This means during the fall and spring, we spend most of our days sans lights – it’s wonderful!

Last year, I picked up the paper ceiling fans from Oriental Trading. During each season of the year, I like to change them out to keep our classroom fresh (fall = leaves, winter = snowflakes, spring = rainbows). Since our ceilings are exceptionally high (~16-18 feet I use a painter’s pole with a hanging attachment to hang the hanging decoration. It typically takes about a half-hour with my Mom helping!)

I am going to take you around the room in a counter-clockwise fashion. As you enter the room, on your right you see my teacher desk pushed against the wall and converted into our Writing Center. Students love having a separate space for Work on Writing, and feel very important writing at a teacher desk. The 4-star writing chart and the heart writing ideas chart are all things we created together in the first few weeks of school. To begin the school year, this wall was empty.

For easy-access, I keep four clear trays for different writing papers and graphic organizers. Right now, I only keep general writing paper in the trays. As we learn different modes of writing, I will add different types of papers/organizers for independent practice. I also keep black pencils (so they can’t wander off), highlighters (for highlighting the word because), and crayons. Keeping all of our needed materials on the desk minimizes transitions for students.

On the side of the desk, you see mini-dictionaries with theme-specific words with picture clues. Then, there is our bucket of clipboards. Our class journals become collaborative writing projects and our mailbox will be introduced after Fall Break (in two weeks) as we learn to write letters. Pigeon (Mo Willems’ creation) takes the mail from our mailbox and delivers it around the school!

Above our Work on Writing center, is our classroom alphabet and number line. To the right of the center, you see our class word wall. Last year, our word wall was much higher (above the cubbies) and I was never able to maintain it. This year, I’m hoping to use it more by keeping it reachable…we shall see!

Continuing to the corner, you see my Teacher Table. This is where my corner of the class is and where all of our small-group instruction happens. I have my white-board easel and chart paper, as well as, my 10-drawer rolling cart of organizing materials by day. I keep my guided math materials and my weekly-read aloud books on the top of the larger cabinet. In the larger cabinet, I store our math and reading games/manipulatives, indoor recess games, and other miscellaneous supplies.

Below the table, I have two 3-drawer Sterilite containers. The containers on the right are my personal drawers (snacks, data, basic supplies, notecards) and the drawers on the right are for guided-reading materials. The triad of silver containers were a gift from a student and I LOVE them. One container holds dry-erase markers, one holds highlighters and markers, and the third container holds pencils and pens. These are all materials I need for guided reading everyday and it makes them easy to access!

Looking from my teacher table, you have my SMART Board on the right-side of this picture and then, you can see my classroom library, pocket chart center, and our listening center.

This is one of our most-used and favorite corners of our room. Here you’ll find our Learning Wall, library display shelf, our book bins, our leveled books, and some of our reading spots.

Our library holds our new dry-erase focus wall. The best part of this focus wall is that I’M ACTUALLY USING IT THIS YEAR!!! Every Monday, I take a picture and text it to families via Remind texting. Each subject I-can has it’s own color (yellow = math, pink = grammar/writing, orange = theme, green = reading), the small blue sentence strips are for vocabulary words, and the Target pocket charts hold our must-know words. The blank spaces under the learning targets are where we add pictures/awesome work/examples. The ‘Our Learning’ header is MTF Jumpin’ Jack font that I printed on white cardstock and cut out…easy peasy.

Elephant and Piggie are our favorite book characters. Within the first few weeks of school, we had read all of Mo Willems’ books together and we fell in love. They are hilarious, silly, and just-right for beginning 1st graders. I used colored bulletin board paper to make the characters and hope to add a quote about reading on the opposite wall sometime soon… again, we shall see! 😉

Every student has their own book bin. I use navy book bins from Really Good Stuff and love them. Last year, I only had 2 bins break and RGS actually replaced them for me! Students keep just-right books in the bins and use them for Read to Self/Read to Someone.

On the top shelves are seasonal books that go on our library display shelf. They are organized by theme. You can see more pictures of how I organized our themed books in this blog post. On the two bottom shelves, we have our leveled books. Right now, I have Levels A-L out. Hopefully by November, I’ll be able to take our the A and B book bins and trade them out for themed book bins!

Turning to the right you see my least favorite corner of my classroom. There is nothing technically wrong with it, but it just doesn’t do anything for me. Here I backed two large cabinets back-to-back and covered it in black bulletin board paper. This surface is magnetic, so I hang pocket charts here. Many times it is for word sorts. Right now, it holds our 120s pocket chart… a perfect beginning-of-the-year math center. We also have our listening center, our clip chart (our school is a PBIS school) and we all use clip charts. Teaching 1st grade, I LOVE the clip chart.), and our classroom sink.

Inside of the back-to-back cabinets are our curriculum materials, listening center materials, and overnight technology storage area. One entire cabinet is filled with Reading Street materials (there are a TON of them). Half of the second cabinet containers are Go Math Materials. (See more pictures of how I organize materials here.)

Our Listening Center has been streamlined this year and I am trying to keep it simple. The three folders on top of listening center are differentiated graphic organizers. After students listen to a book, they complete a graphic organizer based on our comprehension skill for the week. In the first cubby, I keep our headphone splitters which allow up to 5 friends to share an iPad (although I limit it to 3). In the second cubby, I keep 5-8 books students may choose to listen to and in the third cubby, our iPod Touches (I received these devices through Donors Choose) which store our books. (You can read more about how we run Listen to Reading in this blog post.)

Moving to the right 3 feet, we’re met by my Wall-o-Cubbies. I have 30 cubbies in my 1st grade classroom and use the last 6 cubbies for storage. I store things that I want my students to have access to in these cubbies because they are 1st grade sized. On top of the cubbies are supplies I don’t want students to have immediate access to (extra crayon packs, Sharpie markers, sheet protectors, dry erase pockets, etc.)

Above our cubbies is a new Focus Wall for hanging and displaying our anchor charts. Last year, this space was our word wall, but it was too high for me to actually maintain. 7 weeks into the school year, and this space really works for anchor charts. I attached the paper to the wall using painters tape and then clipped on clothes pins.

Even if completely stacked, students can reach the top bins. I clearly label every bin so my friends know exactly what to grab and where to put materials back. This helps keep things organized and allows students to be in charge. My friends know that anything with a label can be touched by a 1st grader. If a bin doesn’t have a label, they need to ask me before touching! (The bins on the left are size small and the ones on the right are size medium.) On the bottom left, you see a thin, unlabeled bin. My friends know they must ask first to open this container (because it’s unlabeled). It holds all the dice I use for math games and differentiating math centers. I picked up a bead container from Michaels (with a coupon and my teacher discount) and it’s the perfect way to store dice!

Then, we have our Math Center tubs and our Word Work tubs on the right. I use the Large Sterelite Clip Top Tubs for centers and absolutely love them. I know they are definitely an investment…BUT take it slow and collect them one unit at a time. (A unit included 6 containers). My first year of teaching I purchased 2 units (12 bins) and they are still in perfect condition. They are big enough to hold a sheet of paper without folding/bending it, as well as, the bins don’t open when dropped..a key detail in 1st grade! 😉

As my students make their reading and math choices, they grab the correct tub and during Word Work they also grab a word ring (as seen hanging from a Command Hook in the picture on the right). You can read more about our Math Centers here and more about Word Work here. If there are extra ‘pieces’ to a center that don’t fit in a container (i.e. a 100s board as seen on the left or magnetic letters as seen on the right) I keep them on the bottom of the containers. Students will look at the visual directions (math and word work) on the top of each bin and know they are missing something!

So, there you go friends! As you can see, I just made a few tweaks this summer to make things run a little more smoothly and keep our learning a little more intentional.

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