Below are lots of pictures from the beginning of the school year!
I have a table near the entrance with a basket for any paperwork that students need to turn in each morning. There are two comfy chairs for one of the stations where students look at math-related books. I have five student tables that are nestled into the cozy corner where the teacher years ago said to place the SMART Board because she had no interest in using "that thing." My favorite yard sale shelf is to the right with student materials organized in baskets for each table. There is an earlier post with a better picture. I also have a nice blank wall for hanging anchor charts as they are created.
This wall, though it looks a little bare, shows my Bretford PowerSync Cart for iPads, manipulatives shelf, small group horseshoe table, and two other tables used during stations. The large round table is where students sit for using iPads for Accelerated Math. The small table with benches is for students to work with a buddy on an iPad for apps/games.
This is my manipulative shelf. I have found it very important for math manipulatives to be easily accessible for the students instead of the materials sitting on high shelves and only getting pulled out when there is a whole group lesson that requires them. These have already come in handy during RTI Math when students are working on Accelerated Math and grab and return manipulatives as they are needed. I'll share more with the next picture, but notice the white drawers that house laminated hundreds charts, number lines, and grid paper.
Each of the larger tubs has 25 baggies of materials for easy distribution. The smaller tubs have loose pieces for when I need to grab a handful or, more often, for when students find extra pieces on the floor or need a few extra.
This is a closer shot of my small group horseshoe table. I've found it completely necessary to have a bookcase behind my small group station.
The top shelf houses my tiara which I wear during small group to signal that other students cannot interrupt the queen (or it might be off with their heads!). There are also number cards, pens, scissors, and a clipboard for recording any notes during small groups. The middle shelf houses dry-erase boards, markers, erasers, and a 3-drawer set for storing flatter materials needed for the low/medium/high groups. To the right on the floor are larger 3-drawer sets for larger items for those same groups. The bottom shelf contains more loose manipulatives to be used during small groups.
These shelves were donated by a parent along with the bins at the bottom which I use for extra supply storage. I repurposed these shelves to house the bins I use for stations. I embraced Debbie Diller's work stations when I taught Kindergarten and could NOT leave them behind once I moved up to 3rd grade. These numbered tubs correspond to numbered spaces/tables around the classroom. Students take their tub to the numbered spot and work on that station. Once stations are in full swing, each tub has a sort of reporting category such as "Place Value," "Addition/Subtraction," "Measurement," etc. Within each tub category, there are 3 ziploc baggies (1-2.5 gallon-sized) with 1-3 star labels affixed. The stars indicate the level of difficulty for the game inside. Students have a choice for which level they will play and I find that they almost always end up on the appropriate level. Games just aren't fun if they are too easy or too frustrating.
I keep an enlarged copy of the student assignments books updated beside my dry-erase board. I also have my drawers that hold student work until I return it on Mondays, extra copies, daily folders, pens, notepads, notebook paper, and dry-erase boards. I also have a set of small drawers (from Lowe's for screws) that hold paper clips, push pins, bandaids, and lots of other things I or the students need on-hand. The large white 3-drawer bin hold each class' finished math tasks or math projects in progress. I believe that I single-handedly have kept Sterilite in business for years now!
These are just some small things that I keep hung on the wall. There's a daily schedule, Related Arts schedule, and class schedule. There's also a running copy of our Math Notebooks Table of Contents page. One of my most handy ideas has been hanging the bulletin board strips on the wall. That way, when students are absent, I write their name on the missed work and pin it to the wall. It's proven much better than lying a paper on a surface.
Each student table has a work basket that always contains pencils and gets stocked with the other materials students will need for the day (note the cups of scissors and glue sticks for that day). There's also a mini 3-drawer set (again with the Sterilite ... it's a sickness) with a drawer each for red checking pens, dry-erase markers and erasers, and highlighters. I also have students leave their Math Notebooks in the classroom and they place them on the paper trays according to 1st, 2nd, and 3rd periods. I scrounged up enough of these that were unused and lying around the school to have enough for all 5 tables.
Lastly, these are my cabinets that were 70's orange until this year. I used a magnetic primer followed up with tinted chalkboard paint. Students make their lunch choices by moving their names (paper on a magnetic sticky sheet) to the cabinet door for their lunch choice. Under the cabinet I have the weekly homework checklists on the wall. Homework should probably be its own post at some point in the near future, but the short story is that if students do a week of fact practice for homework, they get a check. When they reach 6 checks, they get lunch in the classroom with me.
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