More Than ABC's and 123's: classroom set up

Wednesday

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??

Friday

Preschool Classroom Set up!

This is my new classroom this year!!

This post will be mostly pictures but I hope you can get some ideas for your own classroom!

Dramatic play area....still a work in progress.

I used those 3M small hooks to put onto the back of a toy cubbie to hold our dress up hats.

Ohhh.....the beauty of organization before the children start school

Our school bought these pocket chart holder/rack things for us this year.....very nice of them but I just felt it was too bulky and I wanted my chart on my white board above our group rug so I re-purposed it into our dramatic play rack.

This has been my family tree for about 5 years. I made it and laminated after the first one I made my first year was ripped and wrinkled by the end of the year. Every year I send home an apple cut out of construction paper to each family with a note attached explaining to the families to please decorate their apple and add a family photo. We then attach all the apples to our tree and it stays up all year.
I made mine but I think these are cute!

So let's talk walls!!

In my new classroom I have a huge white board, I have never had one in a preschool class before.....I wasn't quite sure what to do with it.....Where was I going to put my circle board?? So I turned to good old Pinterest and found this tend in classrooms. Divide the board up with 'borders' ..... GENIUS!!! So I divided up our board into the areas we needed.

I have since found these AMAZING magnetic boarders!!! They are solid magnet on the back and work like a charm to divide up your white board! You have to check them out! Click the links above to see a bigger picture!

So my new favorite wall!!!

Options

I have plans for this board!!! Ok so I bought bamboo clothes pins and flat tacks and glued the tacks to the back of the clothes pin. I know I know GENIUS!!! Wish I could take credit but again....thank you pinterest! So these are my amazing plans. I took a picture of each of my kiddos holding a mini white board with their name on it. I am going to print out the pictures wallet size and attach them to each clothes pin so they will always have their art work in the same spot for them to view their masterpieces!

Let's talk PRESCHOOL ORIGINATION!!
This year, these are our cubbies, I went into the 'office supply' section of walmart and saw the ID badge holders and knew that is what I wanted to use for our cubbie tags. I then bought name stickers at the dollar section at Target and cut them and slide them into the ID badges. Perfect fit and I can re-use them each year!!!

HERE IS MY TEACHER BASKET
My teacher basket sits under my chair next to the circle carpet....now I don't always sit in a chair most of the time you will find me sitting on the carpet with the kiddos but every once in awhile especially during morning meeting, you will find me in the teacher chair. My basket holds all my calender pieces, stamps, stickers, our weather board pieces and our classroom shaker. I used to use a bell, for years I used a bell but I took my son to a music festival and I fell in love with this shaker, it was made in Nigeria and made out of nut shells, it makes such a lovely sound but is still loud enough to get all the kiddos attention. I LOVE it!!!

and lastly this is my "song pail" in my song pail I have Popsicle sticks and on each Popsicle stick I have written down songs that I know.....I know A LOT of songs. Whenever we are needing a transition or just want to sing some songs I pick a friend to come select a song. It's fun and it helps me to not always sing the same songs over and over!!!

Ok...now how do you keep a classroom neat and organized when you have 3 and 4 year olds??? I will tell ya!! LABEL, LABEL, LABEL!!! Ok, I can hear ya now...."ummmm, they can't read" To you I say.....LABEL in PICTURES!!!
At our school we follow ECERS, and a part of that requires 70minutes of child-directed play. That means that for 70 minutes in our day all the children in our classroom are allowed to choose what and when they want to play with something. Now I don't know about you but I am a bit OCD and the thought of children taking out toys and having free range makes me squirm in my seat!!! With that said....I start my year off right.....label with pictures and explain to the kiddos that every toy has a home.

block area

magnet board

Block area/building zone

manipulative

I printed out wallet size pictures and taped one on the shelf and one on the toy bin itself! We are a month into school and all our toys still are in their homes!!