Thursday, March 13, 2014
My New Cat in the Hat Classroom Theme!!!
While some of you are winding down your school year, I still have two months to go... and I decided that a classroom redesign was in order. Ive come across so many cute classroom themes online (jungle, wild west, pirates), but none of them quite worked with what I already had in my classroom.
Finally, it hit me... I needed to make give a classroom a Dr. Seuss theme, and since my favorite Seuss book is Cat in the Hat, I used that as my inspiration for my room!
Update 5/14/2013: For those of you who have been asking for the set, I have redesigned to abide by all copyright laws and reposted it here. It looks different from the pictures below but its still super cute!
My first order of business was the "Word Wall" or actually, in my case, the "Word Window." The background was already the perfect shade of blue, I just needed to add Sally and Nick!
Next, I needed to revamp my morning meeting resources. I use a growing number line for how many days weve been in school, so I started with that. I used my favorite font, and put red circles around the numbers you say when you count by fives, and "Cat in the Hat" hats on the numbers you say when you count by tens. And yes, I re-did the numbers for the place value chart so the font matched!
After that, I redesigned my "Morning Helper" list. Each day, one of my students teaches morning meeting. I use a list posted on the wall as a rotating schedule to keep it fair for everyone! My school has a poster machine that prints in color, so I was able to make this sign very large... to given you an idea of size, that scroll is a piece of legal paper!
Then, I re-did my months of the year sign! Even though Im not in a bilingual class, the kids love learning other languages, so I teach them the months of the year in Spanish as well! Again, this was printed on our wonderful poster machine!
Obviously, I needed to do a sign for the days of the week also.
I stick the days of the week to the wall using velcro. I also have magnetic tape on the back of the Days of the Week so that they can stick to my metal cabinet.
Heres a overview of this part of my morning meeting area:
Heres a overview of this part of my morning meeting area:
Heres a close up of the centers groups that you see in the right hand side of that photo. I made it look like the Cat in the Hat was presenting the center groups, and I love the texture I put on the word centers!
I put that same texture on the new title I made for "Our Schedule" below.
I put that same texture on the new title I made for "Our Schedule" below.
I also made names for the days of the week that match the colors/textures of the other signs I made for the months/days.
Another main part of our morning meeting is "More and Less Math." We look at the number of days weve been in school and figure out what day it will be when we have one more, and what day it was when we had one less. We model this will the sticks from our place value chart and reference our number line in the process. The kids love it. And... now it clearly goes along with the theme!
I know, I really went overboard! And Im not even done showing you everything yet! Now that morning meeting is over... you have to check out what I did in the rest of the class!
We do a routine during independent reading where we read with a buddy. The students read for three minutes independently, then for three minutes partner one ("Thing 1") reads, and for three minutes partner two ("Thing 2") reads. I have these signs at the students seats to remind them who their partner is and give a constant visual of which partner is reading first.
Update 5/12/2012: The theme pack is up on TPT for $4 and I made a freebie to go along with it!
To view the pack on TPT, click the picture below:
To get the freebie, click the picture below! There are now two versions of this freebie thanks to Busy Bee, who left a great comment below! Thank you for pointing out how this could be confusing for students!
They may look the same, but the location of "ten less" and "ten more" is switched so it mimics the look of a 100 chart and corresponds with the Envision Math Program!
Note: This freebie is hosted on Google Docs. Once you open the file, click File > Download to save onto your computer!
If you like the freebie, be sure to head over to my 200 Follower giveaway to win the whole set! The contest is going through May 20, 2012!
This post is linked up with Manic Monday! Be sure to head over there to see some other great freebies!
We do a routine during independent reading where we read with a buddy. The students read for three minutes independently, then for three minutes partner one ("Thing 1") reads, and for three minutes partner two ("Thing 2") reads. I have these signs at the students seats to remind them who their partner is and give a constant visual of which partner is reading first.
Update 5/12/2012: The theme pack is up on TPT for $4 and I made a freebie to go along with it!
To view the pack on TPT, click the picture below:
To get the freebie, click the picture below! There are now two versions of this freebie thanks to Busy Bee, who left a great comment below! Thank you for pointing out how this could be confusing for students!
They may look the same, but the location of "ten less" and "ten more" is switched so it mimics the look of a 100 chart and corresponds with the Envision Math Program!
Note: This freebie is hosted on Google Docs. Once you open the file, click File > Download to save onto your computer!
If you like the freebie, be sure to head over to my 200 Follower giveaway to win the whole set! The contest is going through May 20, 2012!
This post is linked up with Manic Monday! Be sure to head over there to see some other great freebies!
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