Welcome to my Classroom

At the end of the school year, we have to take everything off of the walls and stack all of the furniture on the counter.  When it comes to the beginning of the school year, it can make for an overwhelming first week back!  So I have spent this week organizing my classroom and have lots of pictures to share with you!

Remember what my room looked like after I had packed it all up in May?

 

Phew!  I had a lot of work to do :)

The first thing I did was clean out (and reorganize) my closet.  I got it all organized and then...

The pegs holding up a few of my shelves broke!!  So I had to move things around and try to figure out a plan.  I came up with the idea of drilling wood into the side of the closet and setting the shelf on that!  Voila :)  I'm just waiting for my husband to come in and fix it!

After I got my closet all in order the next step was to tackle the counter that was stacked high with everything under the sun!

I put the furniture where it went and then moved everything else to my reading table.  Yep, I just relocated the mess :)

But - with the counter being cleaned off I was able to set up my classroom library (the book bins underneath the counter) and the bulletin board.  I took the butcher paper down and used fabric this year and I LOVE how it turned out!

The two pocket charts on the left are for the vocabulary words and spelling words each week, the pocket chart in the middle is where I write the daily targets, and the area on the right is the calendar area.

After I finished that, I fixed up the other two bulletin boards using fabric!

The top picture is the bulletin board above my writing center and the bottom picture is the bulletin board as you walk into my classroom.  Not sure what I am going to put on the writing one yet and the bulletin board in the bottom picture is only temporary ("Hoppy" Helpers for Open House Night) - but they look pretty!!  If you look at the bottom picture, you will see my Ikea organizer - I L.O.V.E. this organizer!  It holds the crayons, colored pencils, markers, scissors, glue, paper and rulers for the kids.  They never have to ask me for supplies because it is all right there!

My next step was putting together the groups of desks.  I have 5 desks in each group (but 6 could fit if I need to add more).  I even put their open house papers and welcome bags out!

 

My husband built me the shelves that are in between the desks a few years ago and they are one of my favorite things!  The kids love them too!

Next, I organized all of my math manipulatives into another Ikea organizer (this was an easy step!)

The last thing I worked on was setting up each area for my centers.  I think I even found a way to organize the materials in these bins!!  Check it out here (:

 

I still have a few things left to do, but I am very happy with how much I got accomplished!   My to do list for the rest of this week includes:



#1 - Find (and put up) letters for my word wall - the green area that is painted on my wall is for my word wall!

 #2 - Clean off the area of disaster. (It is getting better!)

#3 - Find a shelf for my binders!

I love the beginning of the year and seeing everyone's classroom pictures!!  I feel productive when I look at the before and after pictures of my room!!

Before:

After:

I would love to see pictures of your classrooms!!  Leave a comment with a link to your blog (: