Basics of a Kindergarten Classroom

If you're looking to set up a kindergarten classroom, here are a few basics every kindergarten classroom should have. 

Basics of a Kindergarten Classroom

While there are many basics to a kindergarten classroom, I have chosen to highlight a morning meeting board, an ELA focus board, a Math Wall, student bins, a place to display family photos, and the oh, so, desired, magic erasers. 

Morning Meeting Board

This board will be the main focus of your gathering area.  Although this is an older picture, you can see the main topics covered during our kindergarten morning meetings.

Kindergarten Morning Meeting

Student birthday poster that doubles as a months of the year poster, daily weather graphing, counting the days of school, a fives-frame (will switch to a tens-frame the second half of the year), cards for number talks and decomposing numbers to ten, a 100's number poster, a calendar, and our kindergarten math talk cards.

Daily math talks are a basic of a kindergarten classroom

The blue magnetic pocket will hold my supplies needed for Counting the Days of School activities, such as stickers for the colored tens frames chart,  and links to hang from the command hooks below.  The links are used to teach place value.  We have a hook for the 1's place, 10's place, and 100's place.  Each day, we add a link, and flip the number cards. 

Question of the Day in Kindergarten

You can read more about the question of the day, HERE. 

ELA Focus Board

Basics of a kindergarten classroom

Our weekly Common Core ELA goals are posted at the top of this simply focused board.  I created the goal posters for Math and ELA to align with our district's curriculum mapping.  They are written in "I Can" statements, and we review them before starting our lessons each day. 

Remember back in the day when we had overhead projectors?  They had pocket charts that wrapped around the projector to hold supplies. Now that overheads are a thing of the past, I slid the pockets off the strap that buckled around the projector, and use them to hang our letters of the day.  

The yellow 2-pocket chart will now house letter flashcards for Letters of the Week.  (We introduce/review 2 letters a week for the first half of the year) The green pocket chart will be used for sorting picture cards and/or words that begin with the letters of the week.  

During the second half of the year, I will hang our weekly CVC word family poster in place of the green pocket chart. 

Get these -et family cvc word cards and worksheets, FREE.  

Free cvc word family cards are a basic of a kindergarten classroom

LOVE this pinterest find....using paint color samples with your color display.  I've had these crayons forever, and now love them all over again.  

Color words are a basic of a kindergarten classroom

I added magnetic tape to each, so I can easily move them on my magnetic dry-erase boards. Magnetic tape is a necessity for all teachers.  It makes life so much easier when it comes time to move your classroom décor around.  

The kids also love coming up to the board, taking down the color to copy the word, and putting it back up when finished.  This gives them a sense of independence and helps encourage writing. 

After the first couple weeks, I will use the space to the left of the board to hang my story elements  anchor charts. These posters are visual support for early reading skills.  The large print and illustrated kindergarten reading posters include problem and solution, author and illustrator, characters and setting, and fiction and non-fiction. 

Anchor charts are a basic of a kindergarten classroom

Math Wall

You will want to display number cards to 20, as well as a 100's pocket chart or number line. Every couple of years, I switch up my number card display to go along with my classroom theme.  I have created number cards that display the numeral, number word, and a tens-frame to represent the set of objects.  

One of my student's favorites are the Superhero Number Posters.  I love them because I can hang the full 8.5x11posters all across the top of my white board, or I can print them half size to put on a smaller math bulletin board. 

 

Counting Jar

I was introduced to the counting jar activity last year during a PD for Common Core math practices. To get started, I will place a small collection of objects in the container. Throughout the week, each student will visit the counting jar.  Their job is to find out how many are in there, and record their answer.  They can record by writing a number, or drawing a set of objects to represent how many they counted.  

Student Bins

Each student will have a drawer with his/her name on it.  Based on observations and formal assessments, I will place leveled work and/or activities in them once a week. 

Once they master their activity, they can teach a friend how to complete it.  Any time the students finished their seat work early, they knew to practice their drawer activity.  This idea worked SO WELL.   

The book bins below are also perfect for student work.  Prior to our school district purchasing these drawers, I used color coded book bins. That also made it easy when calling students by colored groups. 

Family Photo Display in the Classroom

At the start of the year, I send home a parent letter requesting a family photo.  As the photos come in,  I will display them on this board.  My family photo will also be displayed after I introduce myself to the class.  This is a great activity to help the kids feel comfortable speaking in front of others.  They love talking about their family, and explaining who everyone is in the photo. 

Magic Erasers

Last, but not least, here is another class favorite; "magic erasers".  

I first saw this idea on Pinterest, and couldn't believe the excitement when I introduced the "Magic Erasers" to the kids.  Rather than just calling them erasers, I told the kids they were magic erasers for the dry-erase boards, which made them believe they were extra special.  This way, they took extra care of them :) 

They are micro-fiber facial pads. Yep, that's it. You can get all one color, but I chose to get several different color packs.  Having different colors allows me to transition easier.  For example, those of you with purple magic erasers can meet me at the carpet for a mini-lesson, while the rest practice sight words at their tables. 

You can get a class set of 24 HERE.

Magic Erasers for dry erase boards are a basic of a kindergarten classroom

That's all for tonight.  Time to work on Open House packets :-)  I hope you enjoyed these basics of a kindergarten classroom.