Welcome to My Space

When I first decided I wanted to be a teacher, I had all of these visions of having the cutest room with a decked out desk and everything being in its place.

Reality Check

Being in a toddler class, the whole room is "their space". There aren't formal desks or a teacher desk but, I love it. Thankfully, the director of my center understands the importance of some 'teacher space' and had shelves and built in areas installed in each room. I'd like to share with you what I have done with mine. 

I have two filing cabinets that I now use for storage since I am no longer a file folder user-I upgraded to binders! I store extra supplies in here, my substitutes 'survival pack' student folders, extra file folders in case of emergencies and of course, snacks! 

On top of these cabinets, I have my students art center-again, the whole room is the toddlers play space. Even though most of this area is "mine", the art center made the most sense here as there are many art supplies we use that I can't just leave out without direct supervision such as scissors, glitter, small parts, etc. 

The children have direct access to their markers, crayons, chalk, and paper. Paint and the items in the purple drawers are "teacher jobs". In the purple drawers, I store everytime from pipe cleaners to brown bags to fabric scraps to googley eyes. 

Moving up to the second shelf, I have attached wore baskets to hold our items for the week. I preset and precut everything for a smoother time during our art centers. I also usually plan 3 weeks in advance meaning that all of my crafts and books are picked out, pre cut and pre set for 3 weeks. I also keep our lunch supplies, my lesson plan binders, and all of my post its, pens, hot glue guns, staplers, scissors, etc on this shelf in organized and labeled drawers. 

Finally, on the third shelf, I keep my bag, a jacket and a spare change of clothes, playdoh supplies and random art suppose such as foam stickers, shaving cream, and rainy day activity supplies. 

Although my room is not traditional, I love it and I love that my class loves it! 

What does YOUR space look like?? 

Sarah 

Read All About It!

I am not sure why, but bulletin boards are probably some of my favorite things! I love to find neat quotes for them, fun borders, and the perfect background paper to tie it all together. In my classroom, I have four. 

 

This first board is a mandatory school information and "teacher board". On here, I have a list of all the allergies in the center, our monthly menu, class roster, and proper table washing procedures. I also hang notes that I get from staff members and families, our current class picture, and "Praises for Young Children."

This next board hangs right above the changing table. I have our daily schedule, proper diapering procedures and our daily/weekly cleaning list. 

This is the Parent Board. I hang our monthly calendar, daily schedule, weekly lesson plan, and my "Why I Teach" note here. I encourage parents to bring in interesting articles, questions, etc. to hang here as well. 

And last but not least, our classroom board. I change this board monthly based on the themes. For July, our theme's were Fourth of July, Pets, Jungle Life, Reptiles, and Dinosaurs. I typically make my board correspond with the theme that I have the most decorations for and this month it happened to be the jungle! "Monkey See, Monkey Do. We Love to Learn, How 'Bout You!"

How do you decorate your bulletin boards?

-Sarah

August Currently!

Well, this is exciting! I am linking up this Saturday for my first ever "currently" linky hosted by the lovely Farley from Oh' Boy 4th Grade! 

I started my blog at the end of June and I had seen a few of these posts before via bloglovin and instagram. I decided that this month, I wanted to join! 

Listening: Pretty Little Liars, of course! I have a serious problem with abc family because there is a commercial literally EVERY 2 minutes! For this season of PLL, I decided that I would DVR the episodes and then just watch them a little later. I usually use Saturday mornings as a 'catch up' time because J is at work and I am able to multitask with blogging, lesson plans and online shopping :) 

Loving: That J's brothers are almost here! I could not be any more excited right now! They will be staying with us for the 12 days that they are here. There is never a dull moment when O and Keeg are around. 

Thinking: That here shortly I need to get a move on with the house chores and grocery shopping for the boys! 

Wanting: So again, I started this specific blog in late June but, this isn't my first blog. I have tried twice before and just couldn't get into a posting routine. I know that it has only been a month for Juiceboxes&Glitter but, I am pretty proud that I have been maintaining it. I also want to get involved more and meet new people!

Needing: I try to plan my lessons 2-3 months ahead and then adjust them as the lessons get closer based on the children's needs. For me, this just works because it keeps me on schedule and if I have to miss a day unexpectedly, the sub isn't left to fend for him/herself. I also have been working on organizing the storage spaces in my room and the dreaded teachers cabinet! 

1st Day Back- #lifeofapreschoolteacher. We work year round with 15-20 days off! Do what you love! 

I had so much fun with this linky! What are you up to currently?

-Sarah

From Files to Binders

Like most teachers, I have acquired LOTS of materials since I started teaching. I have resources from team teachers that retired, from current co teachers, my director, and other miscellaneous things I have come across. Over time, all of these papers have piled and piled...and piled themselves into filing drawers. To be exact, I have  had 102 different theme/lesson folders...INSANE, right?!

 Drawer Number 1

After reading various blogs on organizing lesson plans, I decided to jump on the binder bandwagon. I was kind of hesitant on this idea originally because the way our curriculum works, we teach a new theme every week, so there are four-five a month, but they also change each year. 

Many fellow teachers organized their binders by month. Mine are alphabetical by theme. I basically transitioned all of my papers that were in files into standard page protectors. Being that I am a preschool teacher, we also do at least five art projects a week. I like to keep project examples so, I will usually do the project while I am lesson planning so that I have it to remember for the next year. I realized that these just took up an insane amount of room..and don't fit into page protectors so I snapped pictures of all of the projects (349 pictures later..) and added these pictures to the corresponding page protectors. 

 Getting ready to transfer the papers...

And, Viola! Here we have:

Three, two inch binders

58 tabbed dividers

90 themes

5 hours of hard labor

a very satisfied, organized, and happy teacher. 

-Sarah