Classroom Progress #1

This week the weather hasn't been all that great, and I'm heading on holidays next week so I decided to do something CRAZY and go to my school.

Actually, for me this isn't crazy at all.  Each year that I have worked at this school except for one (last year) I have gone in during the summer.  Some people do call me crazy.

I enjoy a nice quiet day in my room, without the pressure of start-up being only a couple days away.  I think I am more creative with my space when I am relaxed.

Relaxed = Summer.

And...as much as I love my colleagues, I enjoy the focused time alone, without the distraction of sitting and chatting and then feeling guilty and stressed about it when I finally get back to work!

At the end of the year we just finished, I said goodbye to half of my position (teaching music) and hello to full time Kindergarten!  I also moved classrooms.  This basically involved shoving everything anywhere as quickly as possible.  Organization?  What's that??  

Classroom moving motto = Get 'er done.

This is what things looked like when the Custodian first opened my door for me...

Not so bad!  When I left, most of my furniture was stacked in the hallway and crammed on the carpet so that the floors could be waxed.  Our Custodians are awesome at starting the set-up process if you draw them a little map on the whiteboard, which I did!  Yay!  

So that cut out a big chunk of work for me and I was able to get started on sorting through some things right away.

Classroom library books, waiting to be sorted;

Math supplies and manipulatives; BEFORE

Math supplies and manipulatives; AFTER

I just need to add the cute little labels I made!

In my old room, the recessed coat hook area was blocked off and used for storage.

I was in a room that was exactly the same size, but I used it for two programs; K and Music.

I had a rolling coat hook rack in the hallway so that I could maximize storage in the room.

Now that I am only doing one thing, I don't really need a giant storage cave anymore and I can use the coat hooks in my room!

However, my shelves and curtains used to hide a multitude of sins.

Not earth shattering, but oh dear, are those boxes ugly!

Ah, much better!

Loving these inexpensive Sterilite containers with dry-erase marker friendly labels!

Somewhere along the way I inherited this ugly little brown shelf.  It used to hide in the storage cave with a class set of glockenspiels stashed inside.

In my new world, it is front and centre in my teaching space as it is exactly the right size to extend my counter area and gives me some extra storage.  The bottom shelf is accessible to students on the other side and is filled with supplies for an art/crafts centre.  

The top shelf is for teacher and carpet-time stuff.

The yellow box contains my number line cards, sorting mats, 10 Frame cards and DIY rekenrek cards.  The green basket has some dice (traditional, colours, letters, shapes), some sparkly wand pointers, my crocodile game, my rhyming basket, and a cute little hedgehog holding a strawberry....for....um....because it's cute.

The edges of this shelf are pretty rough and ugly....

So.....Washi tape!

 Have you seen the paint stick book dividers on Pinterest?

I went to my local Rona store and sweet-talked the awkward man at the paint counter into giving me some FREE paint sticks.  He didn't seem very happy about it.  But he let me have them anyway!

                                      

Using the FREE stuff that a parent gave me (here) I made some cute themed dividers.

Most of the pins I have seen for this project are alphabetical - for book titles, or authors, 

or even reading levels.

These dividers are for my own personal books that I keep at school to use for lessons and 

read-alouds.  I have them organized by theme and/or subject area.

Here are my finished dividers (plus a cat head);

And another angle (with another cat head!);

And here they are in action (no cat heads....);

Something I was working on today was cleaning out my big map drawer unit.  It has very large, but shallow drawers and is perfect for storing items like um....maps (hence the name...), posters, chart paper, etc.  I have not sorted through it in a few years and managed to find plenty of stuff to recycle and get rid of.

I came across many things that I made or purchased early in my career and have since replaced.

I was fortunate to be hired at the end of June way back in the day, giving me the whole summer to start planning and preparing things for my very first classroom.  It was terribly exciting!

I had no extra money at all (I worked at the Gap that summer!) and couldn't afford all the fun and cute teacher stuff that I can afford now.  Its kinda funny....I didn't have the money when I really needed the stuff.  Now I don't really need any stuff but have the money.

Anyway, I am pretty crafty and artistic, so I made most of my posters, charts and classroom decorations in those early years.  In my sorting today I came across these oldies;

They are pretty old and sad looking now. 

The laminating is all bubbled and peeling off (the machine wasn't working properly when these were done).  I just couldn't bring myself to throw them out.  Maybe I can salvage them?

(yeah right)

I will not be going back to my room until the end of August.

That's what I told the Custodian, anyway!  We'll see if I can actually wait that long.

Though my room is still quite a mess I did get a crazy amount of stuff done this week.

Now I won't stress and obsess over my room all summer, drawing tiny floor plan ideas in a notebook and scribbling down all kinds of crazy little plans.

Well...to be perfectly honest I will still scribble down all kinds of crazy plans in a notebook.

I just don't need to do the floorplan ideas because it's all set up.

Ha.

Summer projects!!

On the second last day of school, this AWESOME parent stopped by my room and said she had something for me, and could she just grab it quickly from her car...

I know this parent pretty well, after having taught both of her lovely daughters.  This Mom and I have lots in common, especially a love of all things crafty!  

She came in with this GIANT box, as well as a zippered case and a bag BURSTING with crafty things that she was getting rid of!!!

JACKPOT!!!

I brought it home to sort through and organize over the summer.  After moving classrooms, I have enough sorting and organizing in my room waiting for me.  But of course I couldn't wait...nope, I busted into this baby on the FIRST day of my summer break.  You should have seen the mess I made!  Stuff everywhere!

Anyway, what a goldmine of stuff.  

Stickers, stamps, fancy-edged scissors, and beautiful paper.  

Just looking through it all inspired me.

For the last 9 years, I have had two jobs - teaching Kindergarten half-time and teaching Music half-time.  As you can imagine, I have had to split my time, my energy, my focus, my resources, and yes, even my creativity between these two positions.  

Now, as I am one summer away from only doing one job (full time Kindergarten!), I find myself thinking of all the possibilities...

How will I organize and set up my classroom???

What will my classroom theme be?

What are some things I have wanted to try but have not had the time, energy, or resources for?

Etc....

One thing I have wanted to freshen up for a few years now are the letter signs for my Word Wall.  

For 9 years I have been using hand-me-down signs that were passed on to me with the classroom when I first started at this school.  The signs had been part of one large letter banner that was cut apart...somewhat crookedly, I might add.

They have served their purpose, and there is nothing *wrong* with them.

But, I really like the pennant look and for the last couple summers thought about making my own set of pennant-style letter signs for my word wall.  It just never happened.

This box of crafty goodies contained literally the perfect amount of paper in literally the perfect colours for me to make my signs.  I was feeling pretty tired and wanted a lazy day anyway, so I turned on some netflix, got my paper cutter and lap desk, and got started.

I used the fancy-edged scissors on some of the accent pieces, and stuck everything together using the glue tape dispensers that were also in the box!

If I find the right size of letter stickers I will use those for the actual letters.  Otherwise, I will just write them by hand with a nice fat black marker. 

After laying some out on the floor to show a sampling of the colour selection, my darling cat Gretchen Lightning decided she would like to play with one.

She was having so much fun getting in my way that she called her darling sister, 

Molly Marshmallow over to join the fun.

I will be sure to take some photos when they are completed and hanging in my classroom!