Forest / Camping Classroom Pics

Wow!  My husband, daughter and I have spend the last three LOOOONNNGGG days working in my classroom.  We go back tomorrow for training, officially on Thursday, Kindergarten Orientation next Friday and then our new cuties arrive on Monday the 19th.

I am moving into a new classroom this year so I had to start from scratch.  I wanted to get it done as soon as possible because next Saturday is our 17 year Anniversary and I didn't want to set foot in my classroom next weekend!

When we got the key on Friday it was just a portable classroom with grayish/beige walls and cabinets, that weren't quite finished.  Well, there was a big pile of furniture in the middle of the room and a Smartboard on the wall, but that was about it.

My husband was the most amazing, wonderful man of all time and spent all three of his days off, in my room helping me get the walls done and things moved in.

Here is what it looked like on Friday afternoon after we drug everything from my dining room back to the school and into my new classroom.  Sadly, since the cabinets were not finished on the inside and I could not put anything in them yet.

We are almost finished, but are DONE for this weekend.

This is my Calendar / Morning Meeting Wall.  

I am going to put adorable birds with our High Frequency Words on the tree.

This is my front wall.  Board for Writers Workshop, Smartboard, whiteboard.

Forest Themed Alphabet

Which can be found on my TPT store HERE.

(Sorry about the glare)

My Guided Reading / Small Group Table

Here is a close-up of my Reading Strategies Posters that you can find on my TPT Store by clicking HERE.

This is my Monthly Goal Board  It isn't quite finished.  

But the students names will be on bears and they will move from cabin to cabin as they complete their monthly goals.

This River Rock colored patchwork is where I am going to publish my students writing from Writers Workshop.  I purchased Mrs. Jump & Mrs. Wills' Writing Through the Year and I am so excited to try it out.  You can check it out HERE.

This forest / campfire area is where I am going to do my read-alouds.  

This is the back of my room that isn't complete yet.  My computers and Writing Work Station, also from Mrs. Wills (AMAZING), will be.  If you are interested in the Writing Work Stations, you can find them HERE.

This is the door to my room.  This wall is also not complete.  I did put two of my camping signs here.  I put the hiking sign and the food sign, because this is where my students will pick up their lunch tickets or lunch boxes and line up for our hike to the cafeteria.

I wanted to share pics tonight, because the race really begins tomorrow.  I am not sure, when I will be able to blog and upload pics.  I hope you enjoyed a peek into my classroom.  I will try to post again when it all comes together.

Thanks for stopping by!

Krysti

Camping / Forest / Woodland Themed Alphabet Set

In my quest to create a woodsy wonderland in my classroom, I have created a few things.  One of those things is my Alphabet Posters!  I have put them on my TPT in hopes that others will love them as much as I do.  This is the original set that I made, in Turquoise.  I will be using this set in my classroom!

I love how they turned out!  I had some serious brain stretching over the vowels.  Since, our district is going to Common Core Standards this year, and we now have to teach Long and Short Vowels sounds in Kindergarten.  We have previously only focused on Short Vowel sounds.  Finding ways to demonstrate both sounds, and stay in a woodsy theme, was tricky. 

When I decided to offer them on TPT, I thought I would give some other color options.  So far I have done a pink option and a tan option.  

So far, when I look at the statistics for these on TPT the Tan has been viewed the most.  

I created mine in turquoise, because I fell in love with the Dots on Turquoise borders from Creative Teaching Press.

Aren't they cute?  They also go great with some adorable birds I got to make a "HFW Tree".
They are called Tweeting Birds!

I was struggling with having too beige a room with not enough color and wanted to add the color in my borders.  I already loved the Dots on Turquoise set.  So, when I saw these cute birds, that matched the set perfectly I decided to commit to a color scheme.  I am going to throw in some brown owl cut outs too and make a High Frequency Word Tree.   We will add a couple new birds to the tree each week as I introduce new words.  

The trouble is, I can't find a big tree cut out that is appropriate.  I want it to be a Sequoia tree, since the school I teach at is called Sequoia.  I can only find leafy trees so far.  I may have to create one with paper.  Eeek!  I think I just got a great idea.  If I create my own, while my walls are still empty, I can make several and create a forest around my walls with some trees behind my bulletin boards and some in front.  Hmmm.... I sure hope my hubby is willing to help me.  

Thanks for stopping by!

Krysti

Back to FULL TIME in my Woodsy themed classroom

This year I am going back into my own classroom full time.

 I have been job sharing for the last four years, and it has been a great experience.  My partner (the AMAZING Mrs. Eubanks) and I worked well together, and I have loved every second that I got to be at home with my daughter.  She is the reason that I wanted to job share.  We became parents in 2009, after a really long 13 year journey.  We brought our amazing girl home from China in May and by the end of July, I just knew that I couldn't go back to work full time that school year.  So, job sharing made it possible for me to have every other week off.  I have treasured that priceless time with my daughter!  Since my beautiful daughter is going to Kindergarten this year, I decided it would be the perfect time for me to go back to full-time.

To help ease some of my jitters about being on my own again, (and that fact that my girl will already be a Kindergartener), I have spent my summer planning my new classroom.  So, I have decided to go with a Camping / Forest / Woodland Animals theme.  I love having a theme and tying things all together with cuteness.  In my quest to plan, I have come across some really cool ideas on Pintrest that I really want to incorporate.

This first thing I saw, that I completely fell in love with was this Happy Camper Crunch!

You can find the party that it was originally posted to here.

 I am thinking about maybe having the little bags out at Kindergarten Orientation or Back to School Night.  Both of those seem like appropriate times to offer a treat.  Our district has not been overly strict about us giving edible rewards, but I have read about some that are.  So, I think I will stick to times when the parents are present and can decide if they want their cuties to have something sweet.

I have also been inspired by some ADORABLE clip art that I have found this summer.  My very favorite has to be Woodland Animals by Pixel Paper Prints. (Click the names to go to their Etsy store)

How could I not decide on a Woodland Animals theme with these cute faces inspiring me to create things for my classroom.  So, I have used these a lot this summer.

I was also inspired by a super cute little inflatable camp fire from Oriental Trading Company. (Click the names to go to their website)

I am going to create a little campfire corner for my morning meeting / calendar time.  

I have an insane amount of pins in a private Pintrest board of ideas for my theme this year.  I created a private board so that I wouldn't drive those who follow my pins over the edge with my woodsy obsession.    I will be able to get into my classroom around the 12th (Hopefully, since we start the school year on the 19th) and I will post pics of how things are coming along.  I am moving into a new portable classroom, and as of Monday, it was mostly still an empty shell with no cabinets and such.  Eeeek!

Thanks for stopping by!

Krysti

Beginning Sound Sentence Freebie

I decided to kick off my blog by offering a FREEBIE!  I created a set worksheets a while ago and I recently put them on TPT as a freebie.  I called them Beginning Sound Sentence Worksheets.    The set includes a worksheet for each letter of the alphabet.  Yay!!!

When I am creating a worksheet for my classroom, I want to get a lot of bang for my buck.  So, I provided opportunity for practice for a few different skills.  They trace the sentence, write/copy the sentence, draw a picture, cut out the words in the sentence and glue them in order.  See, lots of practice!

If you want this FREEBIE, please Click Here and it will take you to my TPT store where you can download this set for FREE!

Thanks for checking out my new blog!

If you download my freebie, please let me know what you think about the set.

Enjoy!

Krysti

Thanks for Stopping By

Hello Blogosphere!  I am excited to join the amazing collaborative land of Teacher Blogs.  I have been reading Teacher Blogs for a few years now.   I believe that I have improved my teaching by reading the blogs of amazing teachers from all over the world.   The days of teachers staying in their classrooms and not sharing their best ideas is long gone.  I love to create things and I look forward to sharing my ideas with whoever can use them.  I have recently started a TPT store to share some of the fun things I was creating this summer.  So, I am going to post things that I add to my TPT store, as well as some FREEBIES!  This year I am going back to full time teaching after being in a Job-Share for the last four years.  So, this blog will also be a chronicle of my new adventures.  More to come .  .  .

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