Many of you have written to me excited to see the "after" pictures of our classroom! After many, many hours of work (I would actually be afraid to add it all up)--here is our new DREAM Charter School Classroom!
This is a view of our Science/Social Studies area as well as our Writing Center. This will all take form as the year begins and we hang more around it on the walls. Notice the nice, calm curtians! I love adding curtains to a classroom to take away that very institutional look of the windows. Curtains and plants can really make a classroom look more homey!
This is our MATH CENTER. We saw pictures of it from yesterday. Things were all over the place just a week before this picture was taken. This center is next to lots of board space for many charts, kids work and photos of us doing math.
Our classroom door is covered with cute, colorful animal cutouts. YES! That IS how many kids will be entering through that door in less than 48 hours from now...now, THAT is a reality check!
This picture is an overview of our classroom. You can't see some of it because it's on the other side of the room. This picture is taken from the classroom door! What a nice way to enter your school day.
The children will sit here for much of their instruction. Sometimes, we will be on the squares and other times we will be in a circle. LOTS of time will be spent here!
This is another picture of the rug area with some great visuals that Brooke made. She is really quite an artist which is so amazing for our kids.
This is a look at the entrance of our room. Everything has it's place and the colors are very relaxing. You will notice lots of open bulletin board space just waiting for charts, visual and kids' work! I envision tons of artwork and projects all over the space.
We used a very calming color scheme--mostly purple, blue, orange and green. This back meeting area (for smaller group work) is on a sage green rug. We think these are great colors to surround the kids.
This is our library-the nucleus of our classroom. Inside is a couch where you can visit our PEACE CORNER. This is great for kids that might be having a rough moment and need some "cool down" time. Our Director of Instruction said that when she walks into our room she sees it as a calm place where books are very important! PERFECT! That is exactly what we had in mind! I would love to hear comments about our room! If you are a teacher, be sure to check back as I will be blogging throughout the year about projects and changes to our room. You don't want to miss it!This school year, I am starting a brand new adventure at DREAM Charter School in East Harlem, New York City. If you click here, you can actually read my staff bio on the website. There are some really amazing, talented and creative people working at this school. It is a new situation where I will have 25 students and a full-time co-teacher. I am so lucky to be working with Brooke in our classroom. She is amazing and many of the same interests--one being that she is very artist! FABULOUS! Let me walk you through our journey so far...
When I moved to DREAM from my last school, about 50 boxes of books and teaching materials came with me. They were stored in the basement for the summer and needed to come from the basement to the fifth floor! We have no elevator! Marty took on the task (by himself) of bringing up all of the boxes--it took him 13 hours and many blisters. BUT, everything is now upstairs! This is Marty and Brooke putting together shelves that would eventually turn into our classroom library--the nucleus of our classroom.
This is a picture of just the beginning of the "stuff" as it was coming up. There were moments when none of us were sure it would come together. We stuck together and worked as a team to make it happen.
This is the very early stages of our Math Center. We moved that stuff around so many times to make it feel "just right". Brooke and I have the same philosophy regarding the classroom environment: calmness, structure, organized and full of art and books!
This is one storage closet which no longer has those books in it. It makes me laugh to look at this pictures as so much has changed from these photos to the end results!
This picure makes me shake a little! This was at one of the heights of having things all around us. We kept saying "maybe if we JUST clear off the tables"...if only we knew how many times we would clear off those tables...
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