First Look at 2013-14 School Year!

Well here it is. My room as I got to see it the first time! WOW... lots of stuff and the bathroom has most of my tables and all of my chairs stuffed into it! That would be my oldest... she is in her last year at middle school. I am very grateful that she likes to come help! So the views are from me standing just inside the hall door... aka the front door. We also have an outside door... aka the back door. 

So straight across from the door is the TV (there is a computer that hooks up to it but that is stored with the other computers during the summer.) And my smartboard is adjacent to the TV. I really wish that when the smart boards were install that they were put at the front of the room and not in the corner. But it is what it is! The wall space between the TV and the corner is where I want to add some of the homasote 440 board. It's kind of waisted space. There is a computer drop that runs the wall but isn't not all the way in the corner nor is it over by the TV. It's horrible where it is placed. So I am hopping that the mister will use some 1x4 boards to lift up the homasote 440 and then I will have a bulletin board area there. I am thinking that this will be my writing center area and it would be great to have a bulletin board there. 

This next picture is the back door, as it appears from the front door. Let me tell you bright read doors DO NOT blend well with room decor!  So this years theme is bright rainbow colors. I'm hoping it will help with the red door and the primary blue computer counters and storage area.  My word wall goes in the open space under the window. The cubbies go in front of the window.. but not up against the wall. The back faces of the cubbies face the word wall. This is where the other part of the homasote 440 is going to go! I am going to turn that into our calendar math area. My chart stand goes next to the cubbies. This gives us the edge of our whole group area. We use carpet squares for our carpet that get picked up when we need to do art projects... which almost always happen on the floor ;) 

In this next picture you see the bathroom door open and my cubbies that the mister needs to fix. I have made new table signs too. You probably see the houses hanging from the ceiling... I call my tables "neighborhoods".  I like how it helps build a since of community. 

Alright now we hit the primary blue counter tops. There is a sink under all of that mess!! My teacher table goes in front. I do not let small children wash their hands without supervision! Before anyone freaks we use hand sanitizer for our classroom bathroom. Then our big trips to the bathroom in the hall everyone, even those not going potty, washes their hands.  Oh and all of that mess comes down and goes else where! 

And now we reach the computers. See primary blue! The bright rainbow theme is going to be the only way to hide the things I can not change. I am lucky to have 5 classroom computers. The first one runs the smartboard and one of them attaches to the TV. But it is wonderful to be in a school that is lucky enough to have technology! I also have the primary smartboard clicker system and 4 ipads that stay in my room. At the end of the computers is a cabinet, I keep a lock on that cabinet because that is where ALL the technology stays. 

So that is where things stand. I've got a lot of work to do. I plan to purge as I go. I just don't have the storage here that I did at the other school.