Welcome to the Jungle

I hope visions of Axle Rose were swirling in your head as you were reading…ahem, SINGING…the title of this post :)  Yes, you can thank me for that later.

I was going through some old posts on my family blog the other day and I ran across an entry I made when I was teaching 2nd grade.  This was all before I started The First Grade Parade.  I took some pics of my 2nd grade classroom back in the day and thought I’d share just incase anyone is looking for some ideas.  I couldn’t find the original pics on my EHD…{I didn’t really look very hard}…so I had to copy these from the blog.  They aren’t the best quality, but you get the gist!  I absolutely LOVED having a jungle themed classroom!!! 

Random back story:  I inherited this room from my best friend, Kara {we like to call ourselves C/Kara squared because we’re high school like that}.  Kara was working at my previous school and she decided to stay at home with her babies.  I ended up interviewing for her position, got the job, and took her room.  She already had a jungle theme goin’ on in her room, so she left a lot decorated for me :) 

Here was my door.  I loved it.  It was the first door I ever had as a teacher.  The school I was in before this one had an open concept floor plan…NO doors!!!!!!  Just 3 walls and a big gaping hole where a door would’ve been a lifesaver.  It got LOUD in Kindergarten!  HA!

I painted my little door banner to fit the jungle theme.   The parents were responsible for decorating the hall and 2nd grade went with a grade level baseball theme for the hallways.  Loved it!

Now let’s take a walk on the wild side, shall we?!  On the left is a picture of my “Monkey Math” wall…that’s where the kids went for Mountain Math.  I made vines and oversized, stuffed leaves out of butcher paper to trail along the walls.    On the right was my white board.  This was clearly before the invention of Pinterest and teaching blogs…kinda plain and sad!

Just to the left of the white board was my little area for King/Queen of the Jungle {my star of the week board}.  Kara had the walls covered with black butcher paper and one of her moms came in and painted those animals!  I couldn’t get rid of them…they were TOO perfect!!!! 

Here are a few little nooks and crannies.  My sad little schedule on the left…I didn’t have my schedule cards back in the day.  My little teacher storage space in the middle and then to the right was my little welcome desk next to the door.

This was the heart of my classroom…and the reason the fire marshall wasn’t my best friend.  I LOVED that tree!  I made it using butcher paper and fake greenery.  The kids LOVED to read underneath it!!  As the year progressed, I would hang student work from it.  We did a little study on Stellaluna and I had little upside down bat writing projects hanging from the branches.  SO fun!   My student work wall was to the left and my word wall was on the right.  Right underneath the word wall was a little bench that housed all of my “listen to reading” supplies.  Directly behind that painted bench was my desk.  I couldn’t find any pictures of that, but it was a scary sight I’m sure!  You’re not missing anything!

Here are just a few more views.  The pic on the left was the view you’d see when you walked into the room.  The other two showcase my Café/Class Meeting area.  The snake on the wall was painted by the same mom! 

This was the first closed-door classroom I’d ever had and the first time I ever had to think about arranging a room with desks.  Prior to teaching 2nd grade, I was in Kindergarten for 7 years.  I was only working with tables when I taught K, so the desks sorta threw me for a loop!  HA!

I love to look back and remember how I used to do things.  I can definitely say I’ve come a LONG way!  I think we all have!!!  Especially since so many teachers are sharing their ideas online!  THANK YOU!!!!  Each one of you and all of your fabulous ideas have helped me do things SO much better than I ever could’ve done on my own! 

Now I’m off to start working on a theme for my NEW classroom!!!  Stay tuned!!!