classroom setup 2014

Well, it's that time of year. I got up this morning, packed up my stuff and headed in to work to set up my classroom.

 At the end of every year, I have to take everything off the walls and move all my furniture to the middle of the room, so it looked like this when I arrived:

I wanted to change the setup a little to correct some issues I had last year, so I set about rearranging. And I rearranged that dang furniture 3 times before I realized that my room is so small that there is really only one way to do it: the way I did last year. So alas, I moved everything a 4th time and was officially sweating.

Then I started hanging everything back up on the walls. I hung up some new stuff and some old stuff, and was happy with the way it looked when I was finished. I'm not finished, but I'm close, which takes a load off my shoulders, and means I can start planning for the first week without worrying about my room.

I fixed those trays promptly after taking this picture.

This is my whole-group lesson area. The bulletin board on the left will be the calendar area, which I'll take care of tomorrow.

 This year I'm trying something different for behavior: Every day that a student is on Green or Purple (the best colors you can be on) they'll get a sticker to put on their chart.

Once their chart is full they'll get to choose a prize from the prize box and will get a brand new chart to start over with. I think this will be a good (and positive) way to reinforce good behavior. A couple of my coworkers liked this idea so much that they're going to try it in their rooms too!

That looks like an awful lot of chairs. But I promise, there's only 24.

Student work will be clipped up to the wall on the left with fun and decorative clothespins that I glued onto thumb tacks and stuck in the wall. 

This is my teacher area, and the one part of my room that needs to be cleaned up a little. Once school starts I'm pretty anal about making sure I have a clean desk at all times, so this is rare. 

I printed a few things and then it was around 2:30 so I decided that I should leave because I don't want to spend every waking moment at school when I could be lounging at home. So I packed up and headed home to do what? MORE WORK! But at least I was on the couch watching tv while I was doing it.

I'm heading back in tomorrow for a meeting and to work a little more, but I don't plan on staying too long. I'd like to do some teacher-clothes-shopping!