Idea Gal

Welcome to Idea Gal! I hope you find some ideas that you can adapt or use in your own classroom.  To start off, I thought I'd post some pictures of my classroom in progress.  I'll be moving up to fourth grade this year, so I had the dreaded task of moving classrooms.  Into a much smaller classroom.  With stuff I've collected over nine years.  All I can say is bless our school's bomb shelter basement for being my temporary storage.  Back to the classroom...here's what I've been working on lately.

My library area, in progress.  Each section on the black bookshelf (IKEA, $139) is a certain Guided Reading level.  That way, the I can limit kids' selection to certain shelves so that they're reading books at their level without knowing and comparing their reading level.  

The white magazine boxes are my Guided Reading sets and the striped ones are the kids' book boxes (IKEA, $2/5).

Oh, the disarray...

My soon-to-be math area and aide's small group area

Our Peace Chairs, for when we have little arguments-explicit steps for working it out

I used cheap burlap for curtains; it filters the light, adds texture and still allows us to see the scenery without being distracting

Writing area

This year I painted all of my bulletin boards a Tiffany blue color.  Yay for no butcher paper, fabric or borders!  It will last years and I can use tape, staples or sticky stuff on it without ruining anything.  I highly recommend it! (with a philosophy that it's better to ask for forgiveness than permission)