New Year, New Look! Classroom Reveal!!

Schools back in session here in Nevada!!! We just finished up our first full week of the new school year and I'm so excited to finally show you my 2016-2017 classroom!! 

When you first walk into my classroom, this is on the left. We are required to have our schedule posted by our entrance in my district.

If you look straight ahead and not to the left at our schedule, this is what you will see when you walk in.

This is the view from the front of my room. I have reading and math centers on the left sectioned off with book shelves, teacher table center is at the very back, and independent reading center is in the tent on the right, along with technology center beside that.

Here I have our writing wall, our treasure tree, and our scientific process posters displayed. I have used a treasure tree for the last 5 years rather than a treasure box. I love it! It provides a visual incentive for students and I no longer have to worry about students spending way too much time digging through a box, and breaking toys in the process. I'll explain my Treasure Tree system later in this post.

I also have my Scientific Process Posters displayed in this area. I wish I had gotten a better photo of the posters. You can get the Science posters from Oriental Trading here. We do ALOT of science in my classroom! It is my students' favorite part of their day! I have compiled all of our experiments into a Science Kit that you can find here. We just did 3 more experiments this week, that I will be adding to this kit next week.

This is our writing wall! We write a "Super Star Sentence" together every other day after reviewing what a "Super Star Sentence" is. I choose a student to choose a topic card from the yellow pocket chart and they get to verbally generate a sentence about their topic. I write their sentence on the board, purposely placing mistakes all throughout and my students have to try to find the mistakes. Once we have a perfect super star sentence, they copy the sentence into their writing journals.

This is our whole group morning meeting area. We focus on communication, number sense, calendar, weather, time, and money in this area. My IEP tubs you may have seen all over FB are on the shelf to the left and my pocket chart to the right now has vocabulary words in it that my kids have learned. You can find my vocabulary words here and read more about my IEP Tubs here. I have my rules posted above the board and we recite them together daily. I love that they are real photos. My kids have shown a much greater response and increase in understanding since I began using real life photos in my classroom a couple of years ago! You can find the rule posters from Kristen Smith here. 

This is one of my math centers! As you can see, I have a pink, green, and blue basket placed in each center. These represent my 3 groups. I have an aide at these centers and what I want them to do with each group is placed in the basket that represents their group color. You can read more about my centers here. 

This is one of my reading centers! Again, I have the color coded baskets where I will place what I want my aides to do with each group in their group basket. I change the basket activities up every Monday. The baskets are from Really Good Stuff.

 This is also a reading center....my independent reading nook. My students just love the tent and here they can stretch out, relax, and read a book. The tent is from here.

I just love the book banner hanging above our reading tent. The pennants are book covers of childhood favorites we actually have in our classroom library. You can get them from Danielle Knight on TpT here.

This is my "Teacher Table" small group center. 

When students come to this center, they grab their workbooks/materials that are in their color-coded group center basket and take a seat at the table.

This is my computer technology center. I am very lucky to have 6 student computers and 3 of them are touch screens.

I store my iPads beside the computers like this. I purchased this from Really Good Stuff here.

Here is our center rotation chart that students can easily follow to see what center they go to next. This editable center rotation chart is available here. 

I use this "Timed Timer" to rotate through my centers. I love it as it shows a visual  to students and teachers as to when each rotations is coming to an end. You can purchase it from Lakeshore, but I was able to get it from my Assistive Technology Department for nothing. Be sure to check out your assisstive technology dept. in your district first!  I had no idea the things I could get from them for my classroom. I also got the battery operated name selector from my AT dept. you see on the left of the timer. I use this to select students to perform random tasks in my classroom.   

 

Here is my teacher desk area!

This is the view from the back door and my desk.

This is my timeout, cool down area!

This is my break area! Students that don't feel good or are tired, can use this area to lie down for a bit!

This is at the front door when students arrive. Students place their HW, daily logs, and agenda in the appropriate place. One of my aides then checks them while we do our morning work. 

 Each student has a daily log that hangs in student view and is monitored throughout the day.

The daily log matches and coincides with the faces on my classroom clip chart, so it is very comprehensive and cohesive for my students. This picture also shows my job chart featuring real life photos, which you can get here. You can check out my clip charts and daily take home charts here.

These are my incentive Treasure Tree charts. Each student has 2 incentive charts. One for homework and one for classroom behavior that coincides with the clip chart. Homework is given 4 times a week. When students have filled in 16 days of turning in HW, they get to choose something from the Treasure Tree and they start a new HW chart.
On the other chart, students get stickers depending on where they ended each day on the clip chart.

If they end their day on:
SUPER - purple sticker
GOOD - green sticker
WARNING - yellow sticker
SAD - red sticker

Then, on Friday, students that ended each day that week on good or super, get to choose something from the Treasure Tree.

How I store my printable resource masters, assessments tools, and magazines that I order from. I have no more files in file cabinets! I store 1 master of each file in these binders.

How I store my themed activities we do throughout the year!

Some other favorites in my room this year!

 I love my new GOALS WALL Display this year!
My students recite their goals each day following our classroom rules. These are just simple classroom behaviors that they need to improve on. Examples include: chair legs on floor, keeping lids on markers, no blurting out, etc. You can find an editable file to use this goal wall in your classroom here.

 I also LOVE my Life Skills Word Wall, which you can find from Simply Special Ed here.

 I LOVE my Building Character Emoji Board! It brings some excitement to the classroom. You can find it here.

And lastly, I LOVE my new alphabet chart with real life photos from Sarah Gardner. 

Hope you enjoyed my classroom reveal and are geared up for #thebestyearever. Have a great year! 

Check Out The Bender Bunch Classroom for 2015-2016

When I said the day before school started this year that my classroom was not ready, it wasn't! My classroom is always evolving throughout the year! Maybe I'm just a very indecisive person, and yes I admit I am, but I also, believe it or not, love change! I like to change things up and keep things fresh! I also have a tendency of putting up decor and then not liking it and taking it down days later, rearranging furniture that isn't working for me, or finding new things on TpT or in Blogland that I want to do!! The Bender Bunch Autism students definitely learn to deal with change in my classroom, and it's not always pretty, but has transferred into positive learning experiences for them and their parents!  

My classroom dynamics can also change drastically from year to year, and throughout the year, making it difficult for me to always pre- plan and organize my room! So finally, after four weeks, I finally have my room ready, for now at least, and am ready to show it to all of you!

I LOVE the size of The Bender Bunch room (it used to be two classrooms), but so dislike that I have NO windows! Our classrooms are also outdoor rooms, not inside hallways which I miss! This makes it difficult to decorate doors and outside displays due to the wind and harsh weather we get here in the desert! The Bender Bunch room is one simple long rectangle with no creative architecture and cinderblock walls.....and we know how much teachers hate cinderblock walls!! :) I mean who would put cinderblock walls in a classroom, right?!

So with that being said, here is The Bender Bunch Classroom!!!

This is the front entrance and what you will see when you enter my classroom. The Bender Bunch kiddos place their school agenda, homework, and daily behavior log into the appropriate tray and then hang their backpacks on their hook that is located on the other side of the brown cabinet you see. 

This is the whole group area of my room and where students sit and store their belongings. This is where we hold our morning meeting, review rules, goals, and do group activities. They had already stacked their chairs for the day when I took this photo, but they all sit around these two tables. 

A view from the back of the room.

A peek at The Bender Bunch job chart, behavior clip chart, daily schedule, and treasure tree. I love The Bender Bunch treasure tree rather than a treasure box. It entices students to work harder for something they can see all day long, and eliminates the time spent digging through a box to decide while often damaging other treats in the box. I also love that my students can relate to the behavior clip chart since it displays expressive faces rather than colors. This helps them to understand better and coincides with the report they take home each day. You can get the visual daily schedule here and my visual behavior clip chart here. 

This is the new Bender Bunch writing area!! One of my goals this year was to place a stronger focus on writing. It's funny because I absolutely LOVE writing and it was my most favorite subject to teach when I was teaching Resource and when I was in GE student teaching. But then, I got students that couldn't really write and my writing materials were packed away. Now, I have students that have great writing potential and so my goal for this year is to incorporate writing into our daily instruction. We're starting simple, but The Bender Bunch is already seeing progress. Pencil is from "The Teacher Wife," writing anchor chart is from "Sweet Sound of Kindergarten," and writing prompt cards are from "Teaching with Love & Laughter." 

During morning meeting, we review The Bender Bunch rules every single day! These rules are from Kristen Smith's Back to School Procedures Pack!

Then we review our morning meeting board! Some of this review is on our smartboard.

I've already changed up this board since I took the above picture five days ago with my new magnetic hundred's chart to 120 from Lakeshore and I love it!!! See what I mean!? Still evolving!

These are my student's individualized IEP tubs in the Rubbermaid containers and the bins are for them to store their materials in. I had thought about making the bins book boxes individualized for each student, but that is still evolving! All of my labels are available in my "Mega Editable Labels" set here. 

This is The Bender Bunch Number Work Center. Students go here for 20 minutes each day during our center rotations. Materials are at our fingertips on these shelves, and the activities students are to complete each day are organized in the blue, green, and pink trays you see according to their assigned group color. 

This is The Bender Bunch Independent Reading Center. Students can also read books on the iPad in the tent using the "Epic" app. This tent has really enticed my students to read, and it has become their favorite place to be in the classroom. :) I only have 3-4 students at a time in this center, so it works perfectly. They spend 20 minutes a day in this center and can also choose it during free choice and social time.

This idea came from "The Resourceful Room." Due to the cinderblock walls and having such a difficult time hanging things, she created bulletin boards using foam poster board and you can staple right into it just like a bulletin board. Just brilliant! Student goals are to the right that each student states following our class rules each day. In the middle is our "Word Collector." I am loving this so far and got the idea from the Daily Five or Cafe Book. I've always had word walls every year. I've tried many different kinds and styles, but they've never been effective for my students. I've noticed that often throughout the year my students will say during reading or a conversation, "What does _______ mean?" I decided to use this word collector as a place that we can collect all of these words that we learn about and discuss in the classroom!  

This is The Bender Bunch Word Work Center. 

Again, resources are at our fingertips and daily designated activities for each group are located in the color coded trays to the right.

Left side of the Word Work Center and Rotation Chart. Students spend 20 minutes a day in this center.

Teacher Table Center Rotation with board divided for my three rotations (last year I had 4). Students get small group direct instruction here each day in reading and math for 20 minutes each day. 

The Bender Bunch Tech Center. 

We are fortunate to have 6 computers, 3 that are touch screens.....

....and 7 iPads that are kept here with headphones attached!

Our Safe Spot/Break Area...I'd like to make this area a little more cozy in the future, but it works for now!

Below is our Cool Down Area for students that are harming themselves/others or causing severe property damage. And yes, this bulletin board has already been revamped since this pic was taken. The green tub you see hanging to the right is where my aide places all of my parent's notes or important paperwork that comes back each day in their backpacks.

Some views of my desk area.

Because this used to be two classrooms, there is another sink and water fountain station in the other back corner of the room as well. This one is off limits to my students and is only for teacher use. It is where we keep our microwave, Keurig, and other goodies. Unfortunately, I also have my colored printer there, which is probably not the best spot, but is the only spot I can put it since it is networked. 

Above that is our "Snapshots of our Year Together." I have had this for 3 years now and just love it! You can get it from "That's So Second Grade" here. By the end of the year, it is completely covered in our photos. I place the photos on the posters at the end of each month. 

Here is a closer look at my birthday board and my sight word board that is not only my most favorite thing in my room this year, but the biggest timesaver and most effective assessment tool I've created. You can read more about it here.

And this is my one thing that hangs outside my class with industrial strength velcro to withstand the high desert valley winds...The Bender Bunch line up chart! It allows me to keep students separated that should not be paired together. And yes, the different fonts are driving me crazy....yet another thing that is evolving in my classroom! :)

I hope you took away some inspiration from The Bender Bunch Classroom and hope you're having a great year! :)

Thanks a Bunch,