The nice thing is that these visitors have actually motivated me to do a little sprucing up of my classroom that I've been wanting to do but kept getting pushed to the side, because, well, what's more important: the cute factor of my classroom or the fact that I have my science lessons for the week ready to go? :-)
To get the full story, we need to go back to July. July 30th to be exact. The day that I first stepped into this classroom that was now mine. This classroom that was currently...a huge mess.
My husband and I departed California at 6:00 a.m. on July 25th, destination: St. Louis. After three days of driving, we arrived at our empty apartment, unloaded all of the belongings that we had managed to stuff into our car, and spent the next two days shopping (a LOT), cleaning, unpacking, opening, organizing, putting things away, searching Craigslist for furniture, calling the gas company and electric company and cable company...doing all those things to try and transform this new little apartment into our first home. Somehow, we arrived at the morning of Wednesday, July 30th, with a mattress in our bedroom, basic cooking supplies on the shelves in our kitchen, and an appointment with the gas company to turn on our hot water.
On July 30th, I was scheduled to meet my new principal for lunch and see the school. July 31st would be our first faculty meeting starting at 9:00 a.m. School started just 2 weeks later. We walked into the classroom on July 30th, and what I saw was a mess. I really wish I had a real "before" picture to show you. Teachers, you know that battle every summer with the cleaning crew about leaving the classroom a mess after they go through and deep clean the floors? Shelves and tables were pushed up against the walls in weird places. There were posters all over the walls, but half had fallen down. There were boxes of toys all mixed up with each other. There were books on about five different shelving areas in the room. Used calendar pieces and paper clips and dull pencils and bookmarks all mixed up in desk organizers, completely unorganized. Just too. much. stuff.
The day of our first faculty meeting, I walked into the building at 8:00 a.m. and proceeded to just starting taking everything off the walls, everything off the shelves, and put it into a place in the room that made sense to me. I did that for four days.
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| A before picture, after I had done most of the tearing apart of the room. After this, it was time to start putting it all back together. |
On Wednesday morning the following week, I finally got to the point where I realized that I needed to go and buy some cute paper and borders and decorations so that it would actually look like a classroom the next night for Back to School Night.
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| My classroom ready for Back to School Night! |
Did I have a Kindergarten classroom ready to go when kids and parents walked in on the first day of school? Yes, I did, by the grace of God. And I was proud of my clean, open, and cheery Kindergarten classroom. And, throughout the year, I have gotten more inspiration. More posters and anchor charts went up. More student work is up on the walls and windows. I am still proud of my (mostly) clean, busy, and cheery Kindergarten classroom.
In these last few weeks, I've added a few decorations to my classroom. First of all, to spruce up some not-so-pretty surfaces (the sides of file cabinets). Secondly, to take advantage of that space! Because in my classroom, wall space is VERY limited. My desk is now being used functionally on all three sides! Here are my two newest additions to my clean, busy, cheery Kindergarten classroom!
I started with some inspiration from Pinterest (of course!) and decided to decorate up the side of my ugly gray file cabinet, that unfortunately, is right in the entrance to my classroom (but that's the best place for it!). I decided to make it practical by making it into a center to practice sight words, but also cute, by using up some extra border I had left over from decorating at the beginning of the school year.
All I did was put up some paper, border, took my messy magnet letters out of the box and put them on the side of the file cabinet (with the help of some of my kids!), and then taped on some laminated sentence strips. This way, every week, I can just wipe off the old sight words, and write on the new sight words, and the center is always there and super low-maintenance, with no extras to store! And having it right there when I walk in, all bright and cheery, still makes me smile a week later!
My second project was to use the side of a small file cabinet by my desk. I previously had my "love notes" on the other side of my desk, but I decided to use that for my new writing goals chart (post to come!), so I changed this over to the other side, and once again, spruced it up a little bit with some left over border and paper!
I decided to take advantage of the magnetic surface and use these clips so I can easily switch things out as kids give them to me!
I am no expert interior designer. My classroom isn't worthy of those fancy blogs that advertise all the cutest classrooms. Time and money limit that for me. But I am proud of my classroom. I'm even more proud of what my kids accomplish in that classroom. Hopefully this brings just a little bit of inspiration for you too!
-Mikaela
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