Classroom Decor

Hi friends!!  I hope you're all having an amazing week!!  I have a few more weeks of summer vacation left, how about you?  Today I am going to be linking up with Mrs. D's Corner and Miss V's Busy Bees for their Back 2 School weekly linky party.

The first week was all about behavior management, and you can read my post about that by clicking HERE.  Last week we linked up to talk about different assessments, read that post HERE. This week we are talking about classroom decor.  This is the PERFECT topic for me, since I am giving my classroom an Extreme Makeover this year!!  I have decided to truly embrace the dragons theme and redo my classroom to reflect that theme.

Since there are no pre-made dragon classroom decor packs, so I am starting from scratch.  That's okay, I enjoy creating!!  :-)  Here is what I've gotten done so far.

I made a dragon-themed alphabet line.  I made sure to include both sounds of each vowel, the long and the short sounds.

I also decided to include the hard and soft sounds of 'C' and....

also the hard and soft sounds of 'G'.

Next I wanted to work on some labels for our Daily 5 Book Boxes.  I went through a few designs before I settled on this one.

The book boxes my kinders use are the colors of the rainbow, ROYGB, but no violet.  :-(  I wanted the labels to match the colors of the boxes.  I also wanted the labels to incorporate my theme, use numbers instead of names, and they needed to show my kinders what was okay for them to have in their boxes.  I think I nailed it. :-)

Next up, my schedule tags!!

I try to use as many real photographs as I can on my schedule board.  On the specialist tags, I have their pictures.  Same thing for our guidance counselor.  The lunch tag has a picture of the cafeteria, the computer lab tag has a picture of the computer lab, the recess tag has a picture of...well, you get the idea!!  :-)  I feel like using the real photographs of our school and it's staff as part of my schedule board helps my kinders better understand what is happening during our day.  They also reference the pictures to help job their memory of their specialist teacher's names, as well as to help them figure out what we're going to be doing and where we're going to be visiting.  

I also remade the behavior calendars that I want to use in my room.  Last year I drew their calendars in Notebook software, which was a PAIN!!  This year I found an incredibly wonderful dragon-themed blank calendar template.

All I needed to do was to add the month, days, and dates.  I also added a clip art pic or two to each month, just to make it a bit more fun.  I am going to be printing out a copy for myself and keeping it in my teacher binder.  I might even color it!!  :-)

The last piece of decor I have made, so far, is a set of alphabet cards for my Word Wall.

I wanted something bright and colorful, as well as something that fit in with my theme of dragons but without taking away from the letters themselves.  I decided on including rainbows as part of my theme since a) rainbows and dragons go well together, and b) my Daily 5 Book Boxes match the colors of the rainbow (except for violet).  I was lucky enough to find some amazing rainbow letters.  Aren't these super cute?  {I also got a set of numbers.  Perfect!!}

Next up on my list are number signs, my hallway display wall, and Daily 5 reading and math signs.  Luckily I have a few weeks of summer left to finish as much as I can!!  I can't wait to go back to the linky party and read all about the other classroom decors out there!!  Does your classroom have a decor or theme?  I would LOVE for you to tell me all about it by leaving a comment!!  :-)

p.s. - This is how I left my classroom in mid-June.

I don't get to go back in there until mid-August.  I'm trying not to stress out at how much work there is to be done!!  :-)