Fargo Farms Elementary: Our Classroom

I have been working day and night to revamp our classroom and get ready for the new school year. Last year we had difficulty keeping things moving. I have one little chicken that is a challenge and he could stretch one days work out for a week. This year we are trying the workbox system and loving it. It is keeping us on track and motivated.



This side of the room is the little guys. They all have their own desk and set of workboxes.



If you are not familiar with the system, each drawer gets a single assignment and all the tools needed to complete the work. I redesigned the system a bit and instead of stacking the completed boxes as they work through them, my guys remove the numbered tag on each drawer and add it to the chart above their desk as they complete the work. I searched the Internet for personalized the tags for fun. Little princess here got princess tags and Big O and Wyatt got transformers. I finally figured out how to make them on my own and so I also made holiday tags for all the kids.


Each one of them gets two help tags for work they need help with and two potty tags for extra potty breaks if needed. The little guys don't need the help tags yet because I am working with them the whole time but it does cut down on interruptions when they are working independently. If they start to interrupt Wyatt's lesson I ask if they need to use a help tag and they get very quiet (they initiated a contest to see who can keep their help tags)

Wyatt's desk is on the opposite wall so he won't be distracted by all the ruckus over in kindergarten.


His number tags are on the left and "work with mom" tags are on the right for the boxes I need to instruct him on. He uses his helps no problem, but it is keeping him going because he slaps a work with mom tag on the box and moves on instead of waiting for me.


Our bookcase holds all the books and some games for the year. We also have a cabinet there for our manipulative's and a rolling cart with our file folder centers, listening centers and nap mats.
I decided getting them up and moving would break up the monotony so I set up a center desk where they work on any projects or center work.

As we work through Kindergarten we get two letters to focus on a week. I will be reinforcing those with our favorite letter of the week curriculum. I did this curriculum last year and over the summer with Owen but it is fun and he loves it so it will be going in our boxes again this year. Emma will be doing it along with us for Pre-K. As they master each letter they will add that letter to the tree in their color, blue for Owen, Pink for Ava and yellow for Emma. If you have not seen it check it out at http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/ Erica is amazing and all her printables are free, although you can buy them for $10.00, which I did after borrowing from her for a year!

Last but not least is my desk. It is a big mess as I try to get all the worksheets organized for so many kidlets. I need a few shelves up above there I think.

So there it is our classroom 2010. I am really excited for the year and will be posting our curriculum choices this week along with some action shots of our first days. Hope everyone has a marvelous school year!