My 2013-2014 Classroom!

It is the eve of a brand new school year and I will be meeting 21 22 brand new 4th graders in about 13 hours! I'm looking forward to the new year. Here is a little tour of my "Pinterest-ified" room--

The view from the door. I have what I call a "pie shaped room"--it's basically like a slice of pie!

My large bulletin board area and half of my library plus the student book bins.

My desk area.

Whole group meeting area and the other half of my library. My books are still arranged by Lexile range but I know the research says not to do it that way. I hope to find the time to redo this system this year.

I've always had my student desks in groups of 4 or 5. I really love this arrangement because we do a lot of small group and partner work and this lends itself well to that. Having fewer students this year allows me to keep an extra desk in the middle of each group for storage. I bought some clearance fabric in a cute pattern to dress it up a bit!

Math morning work chart (Pinterest idea came from Math Workshop Adventures) and writing center (my goal is to get it to look like "The Writer's Eye" featured on Teaming Up to Teach).

Information Wall.

Close up of the behavior chart (switching to the famous color system this year after 10 years of "sticks"!), Homework Brownie points (see here for more info) and my fun magnetic board for tracking where students are.

Another small group meeting area by the sink.

I finally have my 10 class pictures properly hung up! Also, I renamed the 4 student computers after my 4 cats--Bella, Blu, Max and Sadie!

Here's a close-up of the Bella computer--each one includes a picture of the cat. All my cats are black and hard to tell apart unless you're me! I think the kids will enjoy that.

I hope you've enjoyed the tour. I know I love looking at others' classrooms. Here's to a great school year!