Classroom Reveal!

The moment I've been waiting for is here! 

It is time for my classroom reveal!  

After a few bumps in the road I can finally post my classroom reveal.  

My classroom starts every year as a clean slate.  My walls are slightly bare and boards are as well.  The kids will fill them with work once they arrive.  

We get lockers this year!  Go Noodle Monsters on our lockers! 

Here is my desk.  

My new clip chart.  The kids loved it today.  

These are views from the door.  Yes my room is HUGE!  

Pencil jars, book basket, speaker, and more.  

Vocabulary wall and the corner for small group with an Instructional Assistant.  

The writing table for Work on Writing. 

My books are all sorted and organized!  Talk about a huge task.  

My jobs board.  This is also the wall that was removed to make my room larger.  

The desks and the front of my room.  

I am so excited to have a weekly "Hot Read!" 

I'm ready for kids to come!  

August Slant Box Reveal!

This month was my first month doing the SLANT box exchange!  You get paired up with two teachers from a different area of the Nation to get to know throughout the month.  At the end of the month you send a box to one partner and a box comes to you from the other.  It was so great to get to know two new teachers.

Now the big reveal of the box that was sent to me!  The box from Ally showed up in my mailbox today.   

This month's theme is "Hometown Pride."  

Here are the contents of my box!

I got a great postcard from Texas!

I love chocolate!  Put this right in the freezer since it is hot out and can't wait to eat it!  

I love this adorable horseshoe as a sign of luck!  I'll have to hang it in my classroom. 

This is super cute!  I love the pink plastic mason jar with a straw!  It will be going to work with me.  Of course it has a packet of sweet tea attached that I can mix in with some water. 

Ally has a huge sock monkey collection.  Now I have my first sock monkey :)!  It also has a "cowboy" hat! 

Who doesn't love sticky notes?  

I love everything in my box.  It is so much fun to get a box full of goodies to start of a crazy week! 

Check out Ally's blog too! 

Organizational Tool

After working in my classroom for the last 3 days I realize that I am WAY more organized than I though.  I am starting a new grade so going through the supplies for the curriculum that were not in order has made me want to pull my hair out.  My biggest goal for this year is to start off organized and ready!  If I start out behind I will be treading water all year long.  

This year I am doing lots of organization methods, but one that I have found to be very helpful is my Thirty-One Fold N File!  

It is sitting on my desk slightly hiding.  Inside this are file folders!  I have one for each day of the week.  During my prep time I make copies and get everything ready for the next week.  This holds all of these copies.  At the end of the day I can pull the next day's file out and set it on my desk.  If I ever need a sub the work is already sitting on my desk!  

This one is courtesy of a fellow Consultant.  It shows the usage better.  

Being a Thirty-One consultant I like to play with product and see where it is best fit.  In my picture on the top you can see I utilize a Fold N File as well as a Hang Up Organizer.  The Hang Up organizer holds items to go to the office, to copy, important documents I refer to often as well as my calendars for the month.  Get these products and more through me!  Let me know and I can help you out by sending a Fall catalog and giving you the tools to order online :)  

Where do I teach?

I am linking back up with 

again today for Back to School Week!  I know many of you are back into the routine of school either with Professional Development days, students have come back or you are setting up your room.

I am currently still in the stages of setting up my classroom.  I teach in a small town called Waldron.  It is located in the great state of Michigan.  This is actually my hometown.  I attended the school for K-12 and now I am in my 5th year of teaching.  I love my district.  We have one building K-12 and around 280 students K-12.  We are small but the kids get a lot of great opportunities because of this.

This year I am teaching in a "double" classroom.  They took out a removable wall and made my classroom twice the size it was.  This switch just happened yesterday so I am still just getting situated into my room.  Stay tuned next week for a classroom reveal post!

Here you can see my color scheme.  It is all still a work in progress.  

Who Monday

Today I am linking up with Blog Hoppin' for a Back to School Link Up.  

I am Emily Bechsetin.  This is my 5th year teaching and yet another new challenge.  Each year I have had a different and new challenge.  Here is the breakdown of my assignments: 

2010-2011  1st Grade (17 students)

2011-2012  2nd Grade (30 students)

2012-2013  2nd Grade (22 students)

2013-2014 1st/2nd Grade (8 1st, 14 2nd)

2014-2015  3rd/4th grade

I attended Saginaw Valley State University from 2006-2010.  I have my Michigan and Ohio teaching licenses.  So far I have only worked in a Michigan school.  I grew up in the town that I teach in!  The best part is that I understand the culture of the area because it is my hometown.  

On June 15, 2013 I married my best friend.  We had been together for 5 years previous to that.  After marrying him we moved to Ohio.  I know what your thinking how can I teach in one state and live in another?  The school I teach in is located 3 miles from the state line.  My heart will always belong to Michigan though.  I will NEVER be a Buckeye!  I bleed Blue!  My husband is very supportive of my career.  He is a heavy equipment operator and works very hard during construction season!  In the winter he works on projects like woodworking, tractor rebuilding for his families mini rod pulling team, etc.    

Aside from teaching I am also a Thirty-One Independent Senior Consultant.  I love to host parties and have some "me" time with the ladies while making some extra spending money.  I love to shop so of course I can use the extra spending money!  

I also am the Assistant Rabbit Superintendent at our county fair.  I help with the rabbit department at the fair by doing set up, rabbit check in, show day maintenance and help with the sale.  Of course our fair is the last week of September so it is always a crazy week with school and the fair at the same time.  

Classroom Layout Ideas

Who loves baseball?  It is not my favorite sport but I watch from time to time.  

A big word in baseball is Curve Ball.  Of course this is also a word used often at my school. 

So at the beginning of this week I had my classroom layout designed and ready to go.  Went in yesterday and starting moving furniture.  

Today when I went in I discussed a few ideas with the Administrator and it lead to me getting a classroom that is DOUBLE in size of what I was planning.  YIPEE!  I am excited that my kids will have more space.  Now first question is what would you put in your room if you had a lot of space but not a lot of money to buy new things?  (All ideas are great!)

Here are a few areas that I want to have: 

Reading area with my carpet 

2 small group areas for teacher led work: One with my kidney table another with 2 rectangle tables

Listening center area

Daily 5 set up (Book is coming Monday so I can prepare that) 

Math Manipulative area

32+ desks 

So far I have part of the room decorated although one of my boards will be covered in the expansion of my room.  My boards will all be teal with yellow trim.  My room is going to have a main color of a teal blue with green and yellow accents.  

This wall will be slid out of the way to open up for a larger room. 

As of right now I am thinking this will be my desk arraignment.  They may change now that I have more space for the students to work.  I like to change my desks every 6 weeks! 

This corner will be a small group area!  I plan to put my kidney table there.  The bulletin board has my main color scheme!  

Any ideas or opinions are greatly appreciated!  

Monday Made It 8/4

Today I created my first Monday Made It!

I am ready to go into my classroom and start the set up process!  This year I am moving to a new classroom.  I will be teaching 3rd/4th grade and will have 28-30 students.  Trying to fit them all in with the rest of the things I found necessary was quite the task.  

Here is my classroom before I did anything.  The janitors just put things where they thought I might want them.  Of course I have to move them to suit me needs.  They will help if I ask them for help!  

In order to visualize my room I created a grid so that I could organize it.  I measured everything in my room and then printed graph paper.  

The white grid is my classroom. I then created all of my furniture using the green paper so that I could move it all around.  Here is my current idea.  It may change when I go in tomorrow and start working.  

One month until we start.  YIKES.