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.

Classroom Decoration....um.....REALLY?

Sometimes I think I need an intervention.

I can't stop.

I tell myself "you can control yourself....you don't need it every day...."

but who am I trying to kid?!

I'm a total addict.

I can't stop looking at classroom pins on Pinterest.

I love all the great, creative ideas.  I love all the inspirational quotes.  I love the funny teacher memes.  I *LOVE* all the pictures people post of their classrooms.  But, I don't always love everything that I come across.  There have been many opinion blogs that I have read that I totally disagreed with.  Usually I just "tsk tsk" to myself, or rant to my husband, and then I move on.  I try to steer clear of comment boards after a few too many waste-of-time useless arguments with perfect strangers.

But this one just drives me so bonkers, I can't even help myself.

I have come across these ideas a few times, by a few different authors, on a few different blogs or websites.

It is laying out some "rules" for decorating your elementary school classroom.  Yes.  Decorating.  Like, freaking HGTV or something.

I know, I know....maybe the author doesn't mean "rules" like....well, rules.  Maybe they just mean tips or pointers or ideas.  Well, if that were the case, I suppose they could have selected more appropriate vocabulary, like "tips", "pointers", or "ideas".  Call me a stickler, but I believe in saying what you mean.

And it isn't just the word choice.  It's the overall tone.  Condescending to those of us who might not have perfectly coordinated tripled borders on every bulletin board in the classroom.

*GASP*

And no, I can't say that I have the exact same shade of blue paper up on every coverable surface in my room.  I'm sure *that* is the reason for that child's attention difficulties.  Like he just can't focus on what I am saying because the lack of a perfectly cohesive colour scheme is really just distracting to a 5 year old boy.

You know what....the rooms look amazing.  I am woman enough to admit to a bit of jealousy.
There.  I said it.
I wish my classroom could look that nice.

But the thing is, I'm just a little busy.
I can't say that classroom decor is at the top of my priority list.

I'm not saying I am a better teacher than these Martha Stewart/Super Teacher types.  I'm really not.
I have no freaking idea what kind of teachers they are.  I hope they are fabulous, creative, caring, dynamic teachers where students feel loved, respected and nurtured every day.  I hope kids leave their classrooms at the end of each year feeling inspired, encouraged, and like they have succeeded.

Truly.

But could we cut it with the "you must carefully select your palette" and "blend colours that are neutral and calming, with touches of masculine and feminine colours so that no one feels left out...".

Seriously.  My eyeballs simply cannot handle any. more. rolling.

These teachers would BARF everywhere if they came into my room with my cutesy borders, cheesy themed decorations and mismatched furniture, not to mention the giant MESS on my desk.  No, my baskets do not all match.  No, they are not made of natural fibres.  And no, I do not care.

*quotes are fake, made-up quotes that loosely paraphrase all the classroom decor nonsense that has been getting under my skin for the last few months.  This is not a direct personal attack on anyone.