Preschool Set Up YEAR TWO

HELLO ALL. Welcome to the new school year!! Last year I did a post on my preschool classroom set up!! I have been overwhelmed with an amazing response via pinterest! I am so excited to share the new look of our room! SAME CLASSROOM NEW SET-UP! 

this year ----------

last year-----------

 You can see last years set up and all the details click HERE

I am a firm believer that if something isn't working....change it!!! Your classroom is no exception! I liked my classroom last year but I had a few things that just didn't work with the space, the kids and the overall feel I wanted in our classroom. 

 One of the biggest problems I had last year was the group time rug. It was in the middle of the classroom and I felt the children had a hard time focusing due to the wide open space around the rug. So this year I put the rug in the corner and boxed it in with some furniture, I can already feel a difference!! By moving the carpet I lost the white board...still on the fence about that but at the end of the day I felt last year the little kiddos had to look up much to high to see the white board anyways and I have a fun project for the white board this year! More on that later in this post.

So just as the last set up post it will be mainly pictures but hopefully you will get some new fun ideas! My goal for this year was to keep things minimal and blue...because after all, we are the blue room!!

 

 group time rug....see how it's nice and closed in ;)

dramatic play area

Easiest way to add some reality to your home center is to save your empty boxes from home, tape them shut and put them into your kitchen/home center. I took our blueberry container and added blue pom pom balls and the kids have loved it!!! For a cultural approach ask the families in your class to bring in empty food boxes and containers from home! The kids love using items like these in their play!!!  

view from back door

 science center

 ECERS folks...sticks, shells and rocks!!!

 oh and a pine-cone from a child's home (nature from home...check)

 

I used a spice rack to display our sensory bottles!

 

our cubbies

 

next to the front door...quiet reading area away from the block area and dramatic play area

 I send home these apples with a note saying please decorate and attach a family photo and return to our family tree. We leave this up all year.

art area...next to the sink!! (it was not last year....just makes so much more sense!!)

 ECERS alert!! Ya know all those art materials you need....here is a cheap way to keep them organized. I took a box and cleaned out some cereal bowls and filled them with collage goodies!

 Water table....also closer to the sink this year! (ya, live and learn folks!)
Also, I used overhead projector wipe off sheets and wrote the black in permanent pen but the blue is dry erase. It allows me to change it with the theme or the material we have in the sensory table that week!

 back wall...clearly I didn't know who my wonderful assistant would be yet lol (wall reads) Miss Taylor and.......drum roll please....Miss D's name is now on the wall too!

 

 

My new obsession Washi Tape!!! 

 

I took washi tape and simply put it on top of the clothes pins...remember those from last year...the ones I glued tacks and attached to the walls. So easy to change art work out! Last year I printed wallet size pictures of each kid and taped them to the clothes pins so the kids always knew where their art was displayed!

Another way I used our cute Washi Tape...I bought these tags and just stuck a strip of washi tape on the bottom and then wrote the kids names on them! These are our cubbie tags this year.

Oh and remember that whiteboard....it needed a little extra something.....ta-da...washi tape!!

Told you, i'm a bit obsessed ;)

Another very inexpensive way I warmed up our room was with window coverings and my adorable chevron banner!! (so trendy...I know, but I don't care!! I love it!!! LOL)

Anyways back to the curtains...cost me $3! yep you know it, dollar tree curtains...

Just cut off those ugly tassels......but wait! Don't throw them away!!! Remember you are a preschool teacher and you MUST save everything!!! (Now scroll back up to my art caddy and play....I spy....some ugly tassles) 

So back to being trendy I saw these cute pendents floating around pinterest but I couldn't seem to get the link to open so I drew one up myself and made copies on blue paper and backed them with white card stock! I LOVE them and cannot wait to string them across the room! 

Every other year I have used these cute ones! 

So remember the white board I spoke of at the beginning of this post...well here is my plan!! I used our AWESOME AMAZING magnetic boarder! I made a timeline...my plan is to leave this up all year long and add pictures of the kids. August it will be their first day of school picture, come October it will be some snapshots of the field trip we will take to the pumpkin patch, December pictures of the Winter Performance they will do and so on...I am so excited to see our evolution throughout the year and I think the kiddos will enjoy it too!! 

So in last years post I talked a lot about labeling your classroom. We do it for ECERS but at the end of the day it is the best way to teach children how to clean up. These labels have lasted ALL YEAR I only had to replace a few, that is pretty amazing considering we are a full day 5 day a week program! There is a lot of ware and tear and they have held up!

 Best part is my kids ALL know that every toy has "A HOME" and we like to say "PUT IT AWAY, BEFORE YOU WALK AWAY" that means if you are finished you clean it up and put it back in it's home. NOW for you skeptics out there.....it's okay, I know someone is questioning the fact that a class of 18 three and four year olds clean up amazingly well.....this is my proof....

 ECERS strikes again......this my friends is what 75minutes of uninterrupted play based, child directed goodness looks like!!!

But like I said "WE put it away before we walk away!" Doesn't always happen BUT we have everything labeled so once that clean up bell rings everything go back to IT'S HOME!!! 

Before I end this post....if your still with me at this point....I need your help!!! With ECERS we are required to have both sand and water. This is my sand corner........someone said it looks like a cat's litter box!! EKKKK....now I can't get the image out of my head!!!! HELP! SUGGESTIONS!!! What do you do for your sand and water??