Before Meets After

Today was my official first day back to work…the students report on Wednesday.
I’ve been working for the last couple of weeks to get my room ready…it’s not quite done yet. I still have a few things to finish, but it’s getting there.
Here is how my room looked on the first day I walked into it. Well not quite…picture everything pushed in the middle of the room…after the custodians finished waxing. My niece decided to help me that day. God bless her.







Slowly but surly things started to take shape. Here's a little of what I accomplished.
Before, this bookshelf served as a semi storage in the front and a place to hang pocket charts during word work. I loathe this shelf…but I needed it.

Here is  the after. Now it’s part of my Work on Words Station. There is a place to put our spelling chunks and sight words for the week, and mini pocket charts for sorting.

Here is a picture of the top of the shelf. BTW I decoupaged over the top…but forgot to take a picture. I will store my weekly sight word activities in the purple baskets. More about my sight words on another post.
 
More storage for Work on Words activities.
       
On one side of my file cabinet is where I’ll keep our word work (spelling chunks) for use during Reading Workshop. I decided to break Work on Words up into four different areas.
Spectacular Spelling (activities using our weekly spelling words).
Wonderful Words (Fry Words activities).
Family Affair (activities that review past spelling chunks and word families)
Fry Masters (fluency activities using Fry words)
If you’d like a copy of the organization cards  click here.
  

Here is the Word Families Board. The little poster on the left is where I’ll post our objectives in Language Arts for the week. If you’d like a copy of the word family cards click here and here.
     
           
Last year I had to take down my line I used to hang student’s work…so this year I had to maximize all the display space I could. The back of these bookshelves were covered in apple themed contact paper…and it was not current…think 1970.
Here is the after.
  
I’m using the bottom of this door as my Reading Workshop Organization board. In the mornings the students will pick where they’ll go for each round during Reading Workshop. I forgot to bring the pocket chart to hang on the door. I’ll take another picture of it on Monday.


Here is my Math Board. This is where I’ll place my Math Stations organization board. I’ll take another pic of this when it’s completed.


This board used to be a catch all for important announcements, reminders, pictures my students drew for me. But I decided to turn it into an abbreviated calendar board. This year I’ve decided to have my calendar on the Promethean board, but I still wanted a monthly calendar my students could refer to.

Here is the whole group area.

This door will serve as a display space for my Super Sundae Ice Cream words. I’m working on this post…so I’ll tell you more about that later.

Here are my Ocean themed numbers.
   
I’m going to put our short vowel words on this board…not actually a board, just paper taped to the huge blank wall above one of my bulletin boards.
If you’d like a copy of the short vowel pictures click here.

Sorry for the long post…but I still have more things to share next week!
So…what do ya think!