The "Before" Photos - Where it all Goes Down

The time has come to get back into my classroom. I forgot to take "before before" pictures (picture everything in a pile in the middle of the room). I have my furniture basically organized, but nothing else done.

Here is my Carpet area. We use this for morning meetings and Read alouds.

Here you can see the backpack hooks, my guided reading table, the very awkward shelves on the wall and the stacks of books to be relocated.

In this picture you can see the student desks (arranged simply so I can see how much room they will take up). The far door goes outside (very convenient for messy art projects). My teacher desk is by the door.

Here is my reading centre. All of the students' leveled books are on these shelves. They adored this area last year. There are usually pillows there as well. That BB is going on the wall.

I did get my listening centre set up.

A trick I discovered half way through last year: I labeled the headphones, volume control and the table with the numbers 1-5. It really helped eliminate changing others' volume and knowing where each set of headphones belongs when they are done.

This is what took up most of my time. I wish I had taken a before picture of this. It was stuffed to overflowing with 4 teachers' worth of stuff. I finally broke out the plastic containers and the garbage bags. Next comes the labels. The top shelf is math supplies. Shelf 2 is language arts supplies and the bottom shelf is science and socials.

How are your rooms coming along? I know it's early (we don't go back until September 6th) but it's so nice to get a head start.

*Linked to Blog Hoppin's Teacher Week.

See you soon!