Classroom Update

Goodness gracious. Who ever knew that organizing a classroom would be so much work and take so long? These last couple of weeks I've been spending most of my days in my classroom or out looking for things to put in my classroom. And I'm still not even done yet. Oh my freaking gracious, until today, I was saying that my room was coming together, but it still looked like a disaster. One of my friends came in and told me that I looked so organized. I looked around and told her it was a disaster, but she made the wise comment that all organization is a disaster before it's all done. Okay, she must have said it better than that because when she said it, it was smart, now that I type it, it sounds retarded :o)

The reason it looks so messy is because our math books are disposables (which means the kids write on them so they can only be used one year) and we took them apart to separate the pages so we can give them to the kids one at a time (because they don't tear out of the books well) and so organizing that is a long process that I need breaks from so that was taking up one corner of the room. Then, I had to organize the books by subject. So I had to take out all the books, put a label on them that says my name (covering up Mrs. Browne's name on most of them), put them into piles based on their content, and then once they were organized I had to put stickers on them so the kids would know how to keep them organized, and then I had to fit them into different bins. That was for sure more than a one day project so that was taking up another corner of the room. Then there were posters, scrap paper, cut out letters, fabric, and other junk all over the tables because they were things that I was using or debating using, and therefore didn't want to put them away.

I was finally able to finish the math books today, finished the books (put have to polish the shelves so they're not put away all the way yet), and cleaned up some of the clutter on the desks that I was done with for now. So... even though my classroom isn't all done, I'm so excited that it no longer looks like a disaster, and it looks a little bit like a rain forest!

Thank goodness for Alysha. I've dragged her in to help me twice now. Last Thursday it was her job to cut out things that I had laminated. We were in my classroom from 9am-1pm and that's all she did (and didn't even finish all the stuff I had to cut out). Don't worry, I was working on stuff too, it's not like I locked her in the room and then left. I was working on hanging vines from the ceiling, a bulletin board, and something else I'm sure. Today was her day off of work so I dragged her back in. What a great friend!! She was the one to actually finish up my math books. I had done all but one unit, so she offered to do that. She finished up the little bit of cutting she had left, and then she joined me on the books. I had organized most all of the ones that were in the classroom already, so today I had to organize the books I had brought from my apartment. I had to further separate some categories once I had gotten through all the books, and then it was time to label them. I had 840 dots to put on the books and I ran out of dots before I ran out of books. Dang shoot, I need to plan better. But it's okay. I won't have nearly as much to do to finish up, so I'm not worried about it. Today we were in the classroom from 10am to about 4:30pm and most of our time was spent on the books. Wow! And that was after I'd already spent at least two days on them.

Also, a lot of what has taken so long is looking for stuff to put in my classroom. I had in my head exactly what my classroom would look like, but finding the stuff that's in my head in the stores is turning out to be pretty tricky. In all honesty, it's pretty fun to go to teacher stores and look around, because they have so much cute stuff, but it's also frustrating when they have everything BUT what I'm looking for. The best part of shopping for teacher stuff though, is that now I can check out the school's credit card, so I no longer have to pay for this myself. Yes :o) Granted, I do have a budget, but seeing as I'm going to have to be making most of my own stuff, I'm sure to stay in budget.

Like I said, my room really is coming together and I'm so excited. So there's not much more that I actually need. Tomorrow I'm making one last attempt at finding the stuff I need in the stores and then I'm going to have to make it myself. I've already tried all the teacher stores locally, so I'm driving up to Salt Lake. There's two that I know I can hit up there and I'll probably find something else to do while I'm up there so that I don't waste the drive. I really hope to find stuff, because I've already been making stuff for my room and it's just not as cute as it is in my head when I have to make it :o(

The room wasn't picture worthy yet today, but I hope that before I go back home (on Saturday) that I'll be able to post some pictures of my room so that people can admire what a splendid job I'm doing :o) hehehe