CAFE Freebie and Photos

I've had lots of comments and emails about my CAFE strategy cards. Thanks for all the great comments! I've changed the spelling of 'summarise' and 'recognise' to have a 'z' instead of an 's' for those of you in the U.S. You can download them again here. 

The rest of this post is just a continuation of the new photos I have of my room since I had to change things around to fit in my new storage shelves. 

I moved my group area to back of the room. You can see the portable divider that I now have my CAFE board on, and I also moved my VOICES 6 Traits Writing board to the window here as well for when I have writing conferences (you can't see all of it). You can see the little toolbox that I spray painted pink as well. It's not as fancy as all the other ones I've seen, but I still think it's cute.

I've also bought some stools to go at this table, but I don't have a wrench (?) or whatever tool it is I need to put them together :( Whatever one holds the bolts on. I'll have to head to Bunnings and pick one up. I was also going to put paper and a border up that small wall like I've seen in some classrooms, but I'm not sure how to do it so it stays up for the rest of the year. I think blu-tac will start fall down by the end of the year. If you know how to make the paper stay on the wall all year - even with things stuck on it - I'd love to know!!

I've now got this itsy bitsy little reading area. The kids take the cushions and lay around the room. I've just bought new covers for them and I can't wait until I get them - they are pink, green, blue and have little owls on them.

I bought these two blue bookshelves from a cheapie shop and laid them on their sides, with one laying on top of the other. They are PERFECT for holding book boxes. I've got another two on the other side of the IWB to hold the rest of the book boxes. I bought the smaller blue shelf to hold my Daily 5 tubs.

   

I bought this new chair for my gathering area as well. I got the cushion and cover from Ikea. I'm thinking of getting a matching one for the rocking chair. On the window is my almost up-to-date Voices board which is available in my stores. I hadn't blu-tacked all of the cards up again after moving it when I took all the photos but I do like it over in this corner even though it's over 2 windows and not on a board. Sorry about the glare.

We did the Language Conventions NAPLAN test today. OH. MY. LORD, the poor little kids. I was so surprised at how hard ALL of the kids tried. So many ran out of time though and just coloured in the last of the bubbles in the last few minutes. Wish us luck for tomorrow - I think we're doing numeracy.