Where Do I Start?

I was inspired by all of the great classroom posts out there! I went into my classroom yesterday and tried to begin putting my room back together. I stayed about 3 hours and got some heavy lifting done. This was my view when I walked in the door. My attempt to cover my items stored in the cubbies with plastic table clothes did not work out so well!

The cubbies are right next to the door. It drives me nuts how the entryway always looks so messy and I need to figure out some ways to deal with that.

The picture on the left is a view at the front of the room. The door is on the right. I finally got smart and left most of my bulletin boards up. The board to the left is my CAFE board. I have the Beanie Baby strategies for decoding and comprehension hanging above that. Between the CAFE board and the Promethean board is my business board, where I keep our schedule, jobs, lunch menu, and a bunch of other things. To the right of the board is my word wall. Next to that is what I had intended to be my math work board - never worked out that way. There is a closet in the corner.

When I moved into the room, there was a peninsula of computers. I moved them to be flat against the wall. It opened up the room and I can see what everyone is working on during centers. The only problem is that I can't open the closet. It is an awkward space, but I store materials that I have for grades I do not teach anymore.

This is a view into the back of the room from the door. There are huge piles of boxes, that were stored under tables, on the cupboards in the back.

I begged to get all blue tables and chairs this year. For some reason I had half red and half blue. Talk about controversy in first grade! It took months to get over issues over chair color. Plus, all the same color is less distracting!

This is what I accomplished in 3 hours (between chatting with a teammate). Again, this is the front of the room. You can see the bathroom on the right edge. The computer tables are down, the large tables are in place, the chairs are in a row by the windows and I cleaned out one cupboard. I did a lot of wandering aimlessly around in circles too. I know I want to change things around, but there is a lack of options with such big tables.

It was like a swamp in that room! My view has changed a great deal! The parking lot has been changed and the playground has been moved back, towards my room. It is pretty far back though, so I don't think it will be distracting. It just looks more like a school classroom now that we have a view of something other than a baseball field!

I hope everyone who is working in their room is making more progress than I did!