For my Mamma Jamma!!

As the title of the post clearly states I am doing this post for my wonderful mama!  She lives in a different county and was unable to make it to see my room before school started {which is TOMORROW...YIKES!}.  

I first wanted to show you a fun and ridiculously easy DIY project I whipped up last minute on Wednesday last week.  I needed a place to display my "Captain of the Week" {this is my first year doing such a thing} and when I went searching for a pinboard I decided to make my own.  I bought the cork board frame from Hobby Lobby {love, love, LOVE that store} for $5 and painted it black.  Got some ribbon and went to town!

 Of course the image won't show correctly.  I first stapled the ribbon in and later found black push pins.

 Then just added the cute little details for the finishing touches!  I'm super excited.  I'm going to let the kids wear a pirate hat for the week they are "Captain!" So fun!

 The following pictures are of my classroom right before all the parents and their firsties came to see me on orientation Friday.  This is looking in from our door and to the right.

 This is the view looking straight into my classroom {I'm still in a kindergarten classroom so I do have much bigger space then my fellow first grade teachers}

 This is my book nook area {the classroom library and book luggage are to the left}.  The board says "work we treasure" and will hold all our creative writing projects and such.  I glued plastic gold coins onto the clothespin clips and they look so cute.  Of course, there's also my palm tree!!!  Man, I love Deanna Jump!

 This is my desk and small group reading area.  My listening center is also stationed behind me to the left, however, I have many individual CD players that allows them to locate themselves somewhere else in the room.  I have my schedule and the common core standards posted on the door, one of my work on writing stations is to the right and the cones now have icecream on them listing our birthdays!

 Front of the classroom! 

 This was my version of the donation 'door' and wish list.

 Here's the other side of my classroom.  We were given four new Dell Computers for our classroom!!!  Very excited.

 Our classroom library and Captain of the Week area.  I will also be posting up our pirate pictures this week {I will take a picture of each kiddo with a pirate hat and patch and place it on our tree}.

I have so many emotions running through me about tomorrow.  I feel like summer came and went in a blink of an eye!  I just finished getting my Jitter Juice ready for tomorrow and can't wait to complete all the fun First Day Jitter activities that I got from Abby's Fun with Firsties packet!  I know the kids are going to LOVE it!  I also just finished putting together the THOUSANDS of activities that I've purchased/downloaded from so many of you amazing teachers.  I feel so blessed to have found this little teacher world!! :)  May God bless you these first weeks of school and give you some sort of peace of mind during the crazy and stressful times!  Cheers to loving what I do...it's no "JOB" to me!