SPRING CLASSROOM TRANSFORMATION FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS: FREEBIES AND TAKEAWAYS

Hey Teacher Friends,

If you follow me on social media, you might have seen my recent classroom transformation: spring! I've done small room transformations in December with the Polar Express, but this spring, my team and I were determined to do a big one for our kindergarten students. It was such an exciting task, but one that I knew could turn stressful very easily.

Today I'm sharing the components that made up this room transformation, plus a few links to freebies and tips to keep in mind if you're planning a classroom transformation in the near future.

Let's Talk About Planning...
When my team and I decided to do this, we knew ahead of time that our theme for the week was spring. We also knew the content that we wanted to teach for each subject. It just so happened that this was a review week for us. I feel like this made it easier because there was no brand new content involved, and the students were able to help (but more on that later).

Once we knew the skills we'd be reviewing, we were able to create or find resources that were spring themed to use. We added those resources to our planning document.

Prep, Prep, Prep
We knew that prepping everything, from lesson resources to transformation materials, would take time... and we knew that we'd be teacher-tired. For that reason, we set aside planning time during a weekly team meeting to brainstorm what we needed to buy, what we needed to prep, and when we would prep it. I added everything to my free Weekly To Do Lists and separated it out by day.

The plan was to cut out all of the paper we'd be needing by Thursday. Then we'd put a decent chunk of the room transformation decorations up on Friday afternoon after school and leave it up for the entire week after. For me this included the "grass" at the front of the room, the "sun" in the top corner, and the "tree". You can get a look at this process in the video at the bottom of this post.

I got the "garden" for our Mix and Fix Sentence Scramble Center done on Monday morning before the kids got to school.

Here's a look at what the Garden Center looked like up close: 

Making It Interactive
Room transformations can be a lot of work for teachers! Students love to help, so why not let them help with this?? A large chunk of lesson plans from our room transformation week included activities that would display their understanding of a variety of subjects with a spring theme!

Check it out:

The Rainbow Clouds with Fruit Loops were actually a math game. You can find further explanation and a template for the cloud in this blog post from Housing a Forest. Check out this close up picture from one of my students working on this activity: 

These flowers were part of a science review lesson. We talked about the parts of a flower. Students put the flower together. Then they used these labels (printed on bright paper), tape, and string to label the parts.

These word family butterflies were such a fun student-led activity. I gave students anchor chart paper and they worked in groups to write words from different word families. Then they chose a word family and generated words (or nonsense words) for the "family" of their choosing on this free butterfly template from Randi at the Teaching It With Class blog. Check out this close up below:

Finishing Touches: 
A few finishing touches to our room transformation were the umbrellas (my FAVORITE part), bright tablecloths, and some writing themed snacks for our celebration. The umbrellas and tablecloths were from 5 Below.

Have Fun! 
Like I said... room transformations are a lot of work. If you're stressed, the kids will be too. If you're having fun, so will your kids. Why stress it? Embrace the work and do it for the kids. I had a blast and I know my kids did too. That made it all worth it.

Here's a video look at the process of setting up the room transformation throughout the week. You'll be able to see a few more details that I wasn't able to capture in the pictures... plus a look at how it all came together for a Writer's Picnic Celebration at the end of the week :) Click here or the picture to view the video

Looking to tie it all together with more spring activity fun? Here are Spring Centers that are just right for K:

I hope this gave you some ideas and courage to try a room transformation! If you have any other tips, please share with us in the comments below!

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ST. PATRICK'S DAY COUNTING MATS FOR TEEN NUMBERS

Happy March, teacher friends!

That's right, it's already March. I can't believe it either. It feels like we blinked and February was over. Today I'm sharing a fun, simple, free activity that's perfect for this month!

My students love anything themed and I love when they get to practice growing their number sense. I also love it when activities can be combined with anything that develops their fine motor skills. Counting mats are a great combination for this kind of practice! Your students will love these free St. Patrick's Day Teen Number Counting Mats. They'll be an exciting addition to your math lessons or hands-on center this month.

Grab this FREE activity and read about the various ways you can use them in your classroom over at The Kindergarten Connection. 

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VALENTINE'S DAY COUNTING CENTERS

Confession time: Incorporating themed centers is not one of my strengths. I tend to stick to what works. That doesn't mean that I use the same centers over and over. I have a center organization system that works and a sufficient amount of activities, they're just not always themed. My themed centers for the year can fit into one plastic bin.

Why does this bother me? Well, this year my team has tried to stick to a weekly theme. And you know what? The kids LOVE themes. We try to immerse the students in it entirely across subject areas. A few weeks ago our theme was penguins. We read penguin books, learned about the life cycle of a penguin, and even made our greeting for Morning Meeting: Waddle Like a Penguin.

Knowing that incorporating a theme into as many aspects of our day as possible helps keep my students engaged and excited about learning, has made me realize that I need more themed activities for our centers.

Valentine's Day is coming up and I've been working hard to add themed activities to our learning fun. From Valentine's Day STEM (written for The Kindergarten Connection) to a Cards Writing Center, and now Counting Centers for Math! The following 3 activities are ideal for students to practice identifying, representing, and writing numbers 1-20.

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WRITERS WRITE CARDS CENTER

Alright teacher friends, I don't know about you but sometimes I really struggle to come up with a variety centers for my kiddos. This is especially true for our writing center. I have several go-to activities that they love. There is a center organization system in place and activities are rotated so they're not doing the same thing all the time but it still feels repetitive to me. I would love for them to be exposed to different kinds of writing that are simple to complete for them and simple to set up for me.

This is the thought that made me decide to create templates for different kinds of writing we all do in real, every day life. With Valentine's Day coming up, cards seemed like the perfect first center to try.

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