Mission Organization: Putting it all Together

I was so excited to finally meet my awesome 3rd Graders this past week!  Still have a few things I'd like to do with my room now that I've actually had students in it, but I'm happy with how things turned out.  Next week, I'll show you what we've all been up to, but for now, I'll just give a little tour of my classroom!

Originally, I was going to decorate my whole door as the TARDIS from Doctor Who, however, the fire code in our district won't allow that, so I used some "3D" letters and a cute cartoon as a start for my door decor:

My favorite part of the room is the Large Group area with my awesome benches (see last week's post).  The rug is a great buy I found at IKEA for about $20.00!  I'm housing my library in fabric bins inside the benches, so this doubles as my reading center.  

I used 3M hooks, a curtain rod, and drapery clips on the back of my bookcase to use as a holder for my chart paper.  Below the chalk rail, I attached clothes pins to the wall with mounting tape to hold current anchor charts. The red and blue pocket charts will hold papers, task cards, and other items students will need during workstation time.

I'm back to using Every Day Counts this year, so I found the perfect corner for Calendar Time (think I may add a rug here too!).  I also used a Doctor Who theme with the months, weather, and seasons. The corner shelf holds all of the calendar items as well as drawers for pens, pencils, glue, and paper. This will also eventually house my Maker Space where I'll have Legos and other items for the students to use to create during workstations.  Oh, and of course, every room must have a TARDIS on the bookshelf, just for a little more awesomeness!

I'm actually still working on my final desk arrangement, but this is pretty close!  Once the plastic storage drawers go on clearance at Target, I'll add them to the middle of each group to hold notebooks and supplies.  On the back board you can see my Math Workshop rotation board.  I hope to get that started with setting up rotations in the next week or two.  I also have my small group table in the back along with all of my Math Tubs and some of the manipulatives I'll be using at hand.

I'm also very lucky to have a great Computer Station setup, along with an iPad cart that I plan on making great use of once we really get going next week.  I also love my TARDIS a la Van Gogh poster, and the banner I got from Staples on this wall! It says, "Welcome to 3rd Grade Adventures in Math & Science."

I really do want to try and make each day a little bit of an adventure for my students.  We'll work hard, learn a lot,  and have a little fun along the way!  This is always a work-in-progress, so who knows how this could change throughout the year, but I think we're off to a great start!

Until next time, have a FANTASTIC week!