Why My Fire Marshal Hates Me...

Reason #1-The menagerie of big cats by my vent.

Reason #2-The fun greenery, lanterns, netting, and monkeys hanging from my ceiling.

Reason #3-The twinkle lights EVERYWHERE.

Reason #4-The plywood animals hung on my wall.

Reason #5-The tree suspended from floor to ceiling.  The palm leaves at the top of the tree.

Reason #5 1/2-The tree being next to more plywood animals.

Reason #6-The comfortable fabric furniture.

Reason #7-The 5 foot tall stoplight.

DIY Letter Paddles

SO excited!  Either these:

(lowercase letters are on the back of each paddle)

*Click on the picture to go to the Lakeshore product.

For this: $49.99

Or these:

For this: $4.28

Materials List (All from Dollar Store)
*Glue gun and glue sticks
*Popsicle sticks
Small Foam Rectangles 
Foam Uppercase Puzzle Mat 
Foam Lowercase Puzzle Mat
*I already had those items.

Directions
1. Load and plug in your glue gun.
2. Push all of the letters out of the puzzle mats. (I made an uppercase set and a lowercase set.)
3. Glue the letters on the foam rectangles.
4. Glue the Popsicle sticks on the back to make paddles.

Suggested Activities
1. Alphabet sequencing
2. Matching upper and lowercase letters
3. Spelling simple words

*My kiddos LOVED these in centers and I won't cry if they break them because they were so inexpensive.  

Classroom Pictures

Stoplight Segmenting

One of my best friend's dad works on stoplights and he gave me one!  My hubby and his buddies stuck it on a spare tire, painted the base, and wired it.  The switches work so that I can turn on each letter one at a time, two at a time, or all three at once!

<3 My jungle theme-and our school's librarian for painting it!  Her dad cut out plywood monkeys and a lion!

Happy Monkey

Magnetic Letter Storage

My hubby suggested I use a nuts and bolts organizer which worked brilliantly!  I just stuck sticky foam letters on the drawers.  

My dry erase board/storage unit is used constantly.  I put their direction cards on there from this awesome seller so that my students know what to do for each activity.  I also use this magnetic sentence mat to keep my writing from curving up or down.  To the left in the drawers are markers (and this product from Lakeshore that I love for centers).  To the right I have a Rural King toy bin that stores the students' little readers they use for Drop Everything and Read.  The bottom compartment has their animals masks and job aprons.  

Our fire marshal thankfully allows me to hang things from our ceiling.  We just can't tape or hang anything on our doors!

Classroom Library

Big Books

1/2 of Calendar is on the Dry Erase Easel, the other 1/2 is pictured below. 

Listening Center and Book Bins

Pinspired Hula Hoops, Twinkle Lights, and Chime Chandelier

Word Wall

(the bottom words are from their Reading series)

The jungle themed behavior signs can be found here.

Stop signs are here.  I love the nonverbal reminder.  In the middle is my gem jar!  I use the stoplight for visual learners as well to remind students what color they are on.  

The lolli tree is well used!

Love that this holds all my weekly papers.

On the left is our attendance cart.  On the right is our library cart.

The pink couch was a garage sale find for $3.00!

Bathroom Area

Seat Sacks have changed my life.

These are also life changing...but pricey.

Thanks for checking everything out!!