A New Classroom

I have been so busy this summer that my posts here have been sporadic. I thought when I got back into my regular school routine, things would get better. I'm still hoping that will happen, but here's what's been going on in the meantime. I found out last week that I was moving to the MOTHER of all classrooms. I have a ton of stuff and it has really accumulated in my classroom over the last few years that I have been in it.

One of the bonuses of having such a big classroom, is the abundance of bulletin board space. There are 14 bulletin boards to use for displays, parent information, etc. The bad news is that there 14 bulletin boards that all had to be covered! Several of them are extra jumbo sized, all of them a different size from the last, and they all go very high to the ceiling in the room. Getting the background paper on them all, mostly by myself at first, was quite the adventure! Summer camp was still in session in my class during my pre-planning, so that added to the difficulty of trying to get everything ready for the kids.

 

 

This board in particular is so big that it took 3 full sized party tablecloths to cover it!

While this classroom has a little less storage than my last room, I'm hoping that the extra large spaces will help compensate. I plan to eventually make some table skirts and hide large storage tubs under tables.

 

This is a pretty cool rug for circle time, but the tape marks are permanent. There are exactly 20 squares taped off on this carpet, which is perfect for the amount of kids we've had each year in Ga. Pre-K. The hitch is that we were given a higher ratio of children this year to go along with the salary cuts and cuts to program funding dollars. We now have 22 students, so 20 squares wouldn't work. Trying to divide into new squares with the existing tape marks would only be confusing to the children.

There was a wonderful large oval rug in the block center, so we swapped them out. Now, with the oval shape,  I am closer to having a real "circle time"!

Just since these pictures were taken a few days ago, things are already looking much better, but there is still so much to do. Shelves need to be relabeled, centers still need some more organization, the list just goes on and on. I found out today that the cute little curtains have to go due to the fire codes. Maybe I can use them for tableskirts eventually. Hmmmm.....  ;)