Monthly Behavior Charts

New product available on TpT. This product is designed to be used with a clip chart classroom management system for the 2017-2018 school year. I have students color in their boxes daily and the charts go home on Friday to be signed and returned on Monday. If you would like different colors or phrases for your classroom, please message me on TpT or email me at keepingkoolinkindergarten@gmail.com. I would be happy to accommodate your needs! Click the cover below for the link.

Classroom Switch

Hey Teacher Friends,

It has been a busy summer for me, keeping up with my rambunctious toddler and traveling to visit family. I cannot believe the new school year is only a month away. This will be my third year teaching kindergarten and there will be lots of changes, but I am super excited. Our 3 kindergarten classes used to be housed in a separate building than the rest of our elementary school and we are making a switch to the main building this year. That means we had to pack up 3 entire classrooms and have everything, including every piece of furniture, moved... thanks to our wonderful maintenance staff, we just had to pack up our boxes and everything was moved for us to our new homes. I am also teaching with a new kindergarten team member this year, she is a very experienced educator and I am eager to learn from her and have another colleague to share ideas with. 

Now that I am done rambling, I wanted to create this blog post to share my new room and what I am currently thinking about it so you can follow its' journey towards transformation. So, this room is HUGE! However, huge is not working out so well for me because of the shape of the classroom, it is very long and has lots of hiding spaces for little friends. There are two doors to the classroom, one of them I will not be using though. The door I will not be using has a magnetic doorbell attached, so if I happen to have a runner, the doorbell will sound and I will be alerted. My plan for this room is to only use half of the classroom at a time, so I can keep an eye on everyone at all times. 

This is the tiled side of the classroom that I will use for math instruction and class meetings. There is a sand table that you cannot see in this picture, to the left, it is being blocked by our fabulous kitchen set that I need to ask maintenance to move up into the loft for me. The stairway is so narrow, I hope they can get it up there! The shelving holds all of my math manipulatives, which I still need to stick labels on. The counter tops will house our math station activities. I am going to make the bulletin board above the cubbies my math word wall. The book bins on the window sill are my leveled readers, I am not sure if I am going to keep them there or move them to the other side of the classroom. 

If you stand in that lovely ABC circle, this is the view of the back corner of the tiled area. I am going to use this as my guided math table. I can store my guided math resources on the shelves and counters. I will also keep all of my curriculum and binders on these shelves. There are two bathrooms to the right of this picture, it is so nice having bathrooms in the classroom. Saves so much educational time when we don't have to do whole class bathroom breaks out in the hall. 

This is the view of the carpeted half of the classroom from the doorway. Unfortunately, we have to keep all of our tables in our rooms as there is no where to store them. This is a little frustrating because my kiddos spend hardly any time at tables, but we will make do! I HATE how awkward the table setup is, but I cannot seem to find another way to make it work. I have to fit my IPEVO and ELMO cart in there somewhere too! EEK!

Here is a view of the door we will not be using! I plan on using the wall shelving here to store our thematic books for holidays and special occasions. 

I will use the carpeted side of the classroom during our reading block. I have a guided reading table set up and the shelving on this side will be used for our literacy station materials and our classroom library. 

This pit is daunting! I plan on using it for our literacy instruction and read alouds. It feels very crammed with my easel and rocker in there, but I use both of these regularly so it will have to work. 

Obviously, I still have lots of work to do to get first day ready! This was the product of one full day's work- unpacking all of the boxes and rearranging all of the furniture with a little help from hubby (while we also chased Hailey around to keep her away from the loft stairs and that pit... so not safe for a dangerous toddler!). 

I will be doing an Instagram live and another blog post once I get things more completed! Stay tuned! If you have any suggestions about classroom setup, please share! I could use advice on managing this awkwardly shaped classroom!