After working off and on all summer on new banners, new products, and finding just the right things I have begun putting it together in my classroom.

Here is a list of items used in my bulletin board focus wall:

Chevron wrapping paper from Paper Mart
from IPA Educational Supply
Yellow Calendar cut into weekly strips (I did the cutting) also IPA

Frog Street Press Stitched Letters

Cute Banner is part of my Welcome Banner and Other Captions Set in my TpT Store

Other items are number circles and a hundreds chart, a place value set, and signs or owls created with owl clip art from Etsy sellers.  I have a new Noise-o-Meter poster for holding up one, two, or three fingers to signify the level of noise allowed at times throughout the day.  You can find it here.

I have been asked about my week at a time calendar journals, and why I cut the weeks apart for my bulletin board wall.  After several years of using calendar journals and noting how difficult it is for kinders to find the correct number date on a calendar grid, I decided to simplify it by only focusing on the week at hand.  For instance, “Would you please find and trace the number date that says the 12th in week 2.”  This really has helped up to work quickly through this simplified journal routine.  All of the journals have a cover, a calendar sheet with weeks separated, all numbers are traceable, and there is a weather and birthday page.  At the end of the month there are data responses at the bottom of the weather page.  Calendar may not be on the common core radar for kindergarten, but we still have questions in our standardized test about it, so I chose to add a quick calendar routine to our day.  This works for me.  You can find my calendar journals here.  More 2013 classroom pics to come!