First Grade: A Fan-stache-tic Change and Classroom Reveal

I have been a kindergarten teacher for almost half of my lifetime.  I thought I would die a kindergarten teacher and then I got moved to first grade. I thought oh my! This is not going to work!

So I spent my summer doing a lot of pep talking to myself and pinning. I looked at a lot of things on pinterest. I checked out a lot of first grade blogs. I did book studies on guided math. Click on the books below that I read to purchase these two amazing resources for guided math.

I reread Teach Like a Pirate and Teach Like a Champion. Click on the books to order these two awesome resources if you do not already own them!

Then I began doing what I love to do....... I visited Amazon and began to buy books focusing on first grade. Here are some I bought and they are linked so you can purchase them also!

I focused on changing my classroom and making it less kindergarten and more first grade. I chose the mustache thing and just went wild. Thanks to Creative Teaching Press for all of the awesome mustache products as well as stickers and much much more. Click on their name to go to their website to order these awesome products and much much more. As you can see from the pictures below:

My bullying focus area. Chalkboard posters are from
Creative Teaching Press! I love my Pete the Cat
Garden Flag, like we say in my room, If you mustache
It's All Good!

My Math Map Wall. I love the mustache border
from Creative Teaching Press. The children are from
Melonheadz and Graphics From the Pond.

                      

My class expectations poster!
I love the mustache chart!
It is from Creative Teaching Press

                                    

My Math Alphabet and number posters.
I made the punctuation posters using

We are counting with Pete the Cat to
the 100th day!

This is where they put their work.
They feed it to the gators and put them in
the pond. I made the gators from giant clothespins.
The border and letters are from Creative Teaching Press.

I love my small group area. Behind my table I
have my math CCSS. They are the GNOM.
This is from Creative Teaching Press.
The black pockets next to it is my lesson organizer.
It is from Thirty One. the folders in each pocket are the
Mustache folders from Creative Teaching Press.
I made the day of the week labels using the turquoise dot name tags
from Creative Teaching Press.

My Math Vocab and manipulative area.

My door I made. The mustache is
from Creative Teaching Press!

I love my clock hands from
Really Good Stuff.

 

How we go home chart
Large circles and border is from
Creative Teaching Press. The
Dots on Turquoise circles are
velcroed on the same pattern border.

My pencil area. The letters, pencil cut outs on
buckets that say sharp and broken and on poster,
and the poster are from Creative Teaching Press.

Love our birthday area. The letters
are from Creative Teaching Press. I
took a picture of each child holding up a
mustache and bow tie prop and attached
their picture under their birthday month.

My character expectation wall.
The mustache border and the letters are
from Creative Teaching Press.

I am a Scentos addict! This is just a third
of my stache!

Our science board and section

My journal and small
supply area. I made this with
crates from Walmart

My space! I love my
signs. I spray painted an
old book case to display my
teacher gifts from former students.

The rest of the area behind
my desk. I made the plate at
ceramics. The drawers are spray painted
and I made the labels.

Finally, my math area! The drawers hold clipboards and
white boards. I spray painted them and made the labels.
The hamper holds pool noodles I use to teach place
value. The pink basket holds yes and no sticks. I used
my cameo to make the letters and dots. The crates contain
my math tool kits. These are from Deanna Jump and Dee Dee Wills
Guided Math Unit. Oh and on the Smart Board is my timer from Visitimer.

Needless to say I began to have fun with the move instead of dreading the move.

The first week I used bits and pieces from Babbling Arby's Fun with Firsties product. I loved the survey and the back pack. I added a little twist to the backpack and made it a homework pal. We included things we would need to complete our homework and I added a little tag and voila we had a homework pal. Here it is:

We made self portraits and made a Pete the cat project by doing a follow me activity. We completed this after we read the new book: Pete the Cat and the New Guy.

First Grade Jitters was a book they loved! Of course we had to have jitter juice to get rid of our jitters.

And I have to end with my banner I made on Vistaprint!

I have been just writing away and realized wow this is a long post!

Thanks for reading and hanging on until the end!

Have fan-stache-tic school year!