Preparing for A New Year

Getting ready for a new year is always an exciting time for me. Feeling refreshed after a few weeks of sun and relaxation helps give me some motivation and energy to begin planning and preparing.

I haven't really focused on doing classroom themes much in the past, although I have chosen different themes for my welcome bulletin boards or for my first lessons. This year I decided to continue with the color theme that I began last year. I have created some alphabet bunting and some number circles for my bulletin boards. Here are a couple of pictures of my welcome back bunting and the number circles that I made.
I also made some name plates with the same theme and some new number plates for assigning numbers to my students.

Here are some pictures from my class last year. I started to coordinate things and I chose the color bule as my main color. I also assigned numbers to my students and gave them work baskets and bins with their numbers on them. Notice that my guided reading bins are also blue.

I found these great boxes last year and I stored all my different games and themed materials in them. The kids loved getting to sit on them during carpet time. I had 12 boxes and 24 kids, so we alternated odd and even numbers each day to make it easy to remember who got to sit on them.
Unfortunately, some of my grade 3s were too heavy and the particle board in the lids started to break. The boxes still work, but the lids don't work well, so I have moved them under the computer carts and we are back to sitting on the floor.