Sneak a Peek with a Peach: {Third Grade Bookworm}

Hey Peaches!

I'm Abby from Third Grade Bookworm and I'm so excited to have my first post here at The Primary Peach! My Sneak and Peek is a little different, but hopefully you'll like it too! :)


The reason it's a little different is because this year I am not in the classroom. I had the opportunity to try on a new role at my school as the RtI Coordinator and Interventionist. I still spend most of my days with kids (hooray!), but it's in a one-on-one setting with our neediest Tier 3 kids (double hooray!). I also facilitate Tier 2 meetings, Hearing and Vision checks for RtI, and our Backpack Blessings program.

There are still a couple of changes I'd like to make in my office, but here's what it looked like when I left on Friday!

I managed to carve out some wall space for a few anchor charts. My student intervention baskets are all together, my "watch list" is on the wall and I even saved room for a Happy Wall when things get stressful.

My resource bookshelf keeps all of my important stuff in one place. After the first 9 weeks is up, I'm clearing out anything I haven't really used yet and taking it home to put in my office. Which, so far, is going to be the entire bottom shelf. Is it sad that I'm excited about clearing out a shelf? ;-)

When I was in the classroom, I had these baskets (square and rectangle) all over my classroom library. My husband was over-the-moon excited when I took 10 of them back to school to use for my intervention students. :-)

I just finished organizing my supplies this week. Thank goodness for the pressure of a blog post to get some stuff done!

Games to reinforce intervention skills. Most of these came from a Donors Choose grant I wrote a few years ago. I'm so glad I did - I use them all the time now!!

I ordered this file crate on wheels several years ago from Office Max. It is perfect for storing all of my Reading A-Z fluency probes. I love having these sets ready to go. It makes it really easy to pull resources for teachers to use at Tier 2 as well!

That's about it! I hope you've enjoyed our Sneak a Peek series. I love looking into other teachers' classrooms!

Until next time ---

Sneak A Peek With a Peach: Notes From the Portable

Hello!  My name is Jessica Zannini from Notes from the Portable.  I am so excited to be joining the Primary Peach.

Recently my classroom has changed. With two toddlers, I decided to stay at home for a few years and my playroom has become my new classroom.  The goal in designing my classroom was to make it easy to use for myself and my children.  Take a peek into our at-home classroom.

This is where we start our day.  We talk about where we are going (school, gymnastics, the park, grocery store, etc), and what we are learning throughout the week.  We look for the numbers, letters, and shapes for the week on our daily walks and car rides.  The calendar I use a lot with my daughter. It has magnets and we use it for finding and ordering numbers.  My next goal is to have images of our month.  I want to put those up so they can see the pattern of what days they go to preschool and gymnastics.  

The word wall introduces the letters to my kids.  I have it up higher on the wall so they can see it, but not touch it.  I used words that are high frequency for our household such as names, family, and favorite foods and animals. The number line has images of my daughter's favorite food...cupcakes.

This book has the word wall that the kids can get their hands on.  It also has family names, pets a pictures of common animals, numbers, shapes, etc. This is a book that the kids can read to me. I put these in page protectors so we can change them out or add items as needed.

All of the toys have been grouped in separate tubs.  I took pictures of the actual toys in the tubs and added the word to each card.  This way they are seeing the word along with an image of the toy.  It has made a huge difference in finding toys, and having the kids help me clean up!

We use a variety of tools for their daily work (write on maps, place mats, sticker books, and home made books).  I create a book each week for the letter and number of the week.  Between Educlips and Creative Clips, I am never at a loss for clipart to use in the letter of the week books.  We place our snacks on the number of the week chart.  This helps the kids practice counting to that number.

The dollar store has so many great tools to use.  We get seasonal window displays and sticker books that help with learning vocabulary.  I also use the wonderful clipart I have purchase on Teachers Pay Teachers to create site word books for seasons and our activities. 

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my new classroom. Check out the schedule below to find more exciting classroom ideas!

Sneak a Peak with the Peach: A Primary Owl

Hi, everyone! I'm Deanna from A Primary Owl and I am so excited that my very first post to the Peach is going to be sharing my room with you! I did a huge reno this summer (can you tell I watch a lot of HGTV?) Anyway I did make a bunch of changes this summer.......I took every piece of furniture home with me and painted it black. What a huge, messy job! I also changed all my colors to brights with chalkboard. I'm kinda known for loving owls, so I still kept a lot of my owls incorporated too. I can't give up all the cute ones the kids have given me over the years.

So without wasting any more time, here goes!

It looks like I have very few books in this picture, at the moment I think they are all stuffed in their book boxes. 

This is where I put my computer and document camera. This past summer, my daddy made me this taller desk to sit/stand at while I use the doc camera and computer with the class. Love it! (Before I was using an AV cart.)

Our bulletin board for Mentor Sentences....I pick 4 or 5 sentences to display each week. One of my listening centers is below this bulletin board.

The last picture shows my Writing Center and the back wall. On the back wall I have a tall bookshelf with our book boxes. The other picture is of our "Jump Start" activities. These are activities and games that the students can do after Morning Work. I have decreased the amount of Morning Work this year and tried to make this time more meaningful by giving students task cards, dice games and activities they can do on white boards. So they can get a "Jump Start" on their day!

I hope you enjoyed your tour! Come back tomorrow to see another Peachy Room.

Deanna 

Sneak a Peek with a Peach: The Primary Life

Hi Everyone! I'm Jonna from the Primary Life and I'm super excited to share my favorite areas of my kindergarten class! 

This is the entrance to my kindergarten classroom.  Our mascot bear is usually dressed up to reflect our current theme or season.  I absolutely love love my chalkboard that I received last year from one of my students. 

When my students come in the morning, they will find their picture and match it to their name.  This really helps my little ones who are struggling with name recognition.  When we return from Fall Break, I will replace their first names with their last names, then birthdays, addresses, etc. This is a great way to differentiate as well.

My bookcase houses a lot of my materials for Guided Reading. At the bottom, I have all of my leveled books. On the shelves above, I store my letter tiles, letter magnets and white boards.

My kids love our Chicka Chicka Name tree! We use it a lot to help find our friends' names as well as for our "Write the Room" activities

My easel is the place where I store a lot of my charts and posters. Our September song is on there now and we are using it for shared writing activities. I replaced some of the sight words with sticky notes and we try our best to spell them together. 

Our Investigation Station area  allows our students to use scientific tools with any of the content areas. We have scales, magnifying glasses, tweezers, scoops and science related books. 

I am very fortunate to be a 1:1 iPad classroom! Last year, it was very difficult to keep moving our iPads from our tables to the cart.  So, I looked on Pinterest and found a teacher that used a dish rack to store her iPads.  This allows my students to get them whenever they need them.  Each iPad has a number and I have a list posted in case they forget. I found that the easiest way to store headphones was to use the Ziploc baggies labeled with their names. 

The Looking Closely Center is my attempt at a Reggio-inspired provocation. Students can look at the object "closely" using the magnifying glass and record their observations/pictures in their "Looking Closely" journal.

Sight Word Poetry journals are a favorite among parents and students every year.  Each Tuesday, my students and I read a season/theme related poem together.  That night they take it home and read it, illustrate it and circle their sight words.  This is where we display them after students return them on Wednesday.

I saw this idea on Pinterest.  Each one of our tables has a sight word instead of a number. 

This is my small group meeting area.  

In the mornings, my students get to vote for the first read aloud of the day. They love this!

Thank you for "Peeking" into my classroom! Mark your calendars to check out other awesome classrooms.

Sneak a Peek with a Peach: Just Reed!

Hi, I'm Ashley from the Blog Just Reed, and I'm so excited to be joining the cool kids on The Primary Peach to show you my classroom! 

 Are you ready to sneak a peek with a peach?

I looped up from Kindergarten to first grade this year.    I created an Apple Decor theme set to decorate my classroom.  It involves color (green, red,  yellow, pink, and turquoise) + Patterns with a subtle infusion of apples!  It's the perfect environment for my first grade classroom!

First I'll give y'all an overall view, and then I'll hone in on a few details!
Many people have asked me if I painted the room.  No, it was already painted that way.  This was previously the 3K room but is now the room for first grade.  This building houses Pre-K, K, and now 1st, and each room and hallway in the building is painted like grass and sky.  I chose to paint have hubby paint all the furniture Ceylon Cream to tone down the walls a bit.  I didn't want the furniture competing with the other colors! 

Speaking of hubby....he worked so hard this summer!!  He actually sewed my valance for me, painted all of my furniture, spent about 4 hours steam cleaning my carpet, washed the windows, installed new mini blinds, AND painted the ceiling a bright white for me.  He truly went above and beyond!  I am blessed!! Several parent volunteers installed bright fluorescent lights donated by Walmart....so my room is bright and airy!  It's quite stunning!

Creating some apple lanterns to hang above my desk was a must!

 I also made some inspirational prints and put them in rustic chalk-painted frames.

My birthday board is one of my favorite parts of the room.  I found this fabulous cupcake garland on Etsy, and I created Astrobrights colored card stock cupcakes and candles to highlight student birthdays!

 I also love the red and turquoise Dollar Tree tubs I picked up for organizing my classroom supplies.  I shared these labels as a freebie a while back!

         Students are sure to love my classroom library.  I made book  basket labels that are attached to my Dollar Tree book tubs with velcro.  As I changed out books throughout the year, I can just remove a label and add the correct label!

My classroom writing center is OFF THE CHAIN.  I can just imagine the SQUEALS I'm going to hear the first day of school!

I'm in LOVE with my desk! I purchased it from a retiring insurance agent.  It's an antique that is well built and beautiful!  Hubby painted it Ceylon Cream and I fancied it up with some tassels purchased from Schoolgirl Style!  The cushions came from Marshall's and will be used for reading spots around the room.

And of course I had to create the perfect workstation behind my desk to organize all my goodies...and to inspire me a bit!

The monthly binder covers for organizing your curriculum materials are a FREEBIE I shared a while  back.  Grab them here:

One thing my kiddos always love is my Question of the Day.  The first day of school I take the students pictures with a fake  mustache on.  I've decided to take a thumbs up pic for YES and a thumbs down pic for NO this year and make the magnet reversible.  Students read the question and vote in the morning "Yes" or "No."  It's so much fun to watch them progress from being unable to read the question to reading it fluently as the year progresses.

A classroom can never have too much inspiration!  I found these goodies at Hobby Lobby.

 I found these adorable buckets already numbered for my tables at Target.  And I bought a classroom supply of Neat Seats for just $6 each from Michelle Oakes!

I love how my small group table turned out!  We used tablecloth-type fabric (felt on the back side, vinyl on the front side) from Hobby Lobby.  Hubby stapled it under the table!

 I plan to bring in a lot more plants and plant-based learning experiences and crafts this year!  I just love how home-like a few plants make the space feel!

And this is my check in station.  It has a basket for students to turn in their nightly folders, freshly sharpened pencils in a Target vintage pencil mason jar, our QOD board, and baskets labeled 1, 2, 3 (purchased at Target) for table activities, books to browse, etc.

My black director's chair is beside this table, and my teachers' manuals are housed in metal cut-out book bins in a sunny yellow color (purchased from Target).

It also includes baskets of spelling centers at the bottom!

My main bulletin board for Back to School is a Bucket Fillers Display.

 I got a pack of the small card stock triangles from Hobby Lobby.  They're perfect for a quick and easy bunting.  I got the puffy tissue accents on the corner of the bulletin board from Hobby Lobby as well, and I ordered the borders from Schoolgirlstyle.com.

I hope you enjoyed this peak into my classroom!

Be sure to mark your calendar for these other classroom peeks coming up on our blog: