Monday, July 14, 2014

Big changes ahead (and Monday Made It)

My life is changing in a big way.  I decided to move schools and grade levels...AND I'm buying my first house.  As I was deciding, I let blogging get too far away but I am feeling inspired and renewed so I'm back at it.
Famous saying by George Bernard Shaw.
Change can be scary. I'm leaving my friends and the students I have loved for the past four years.  But I'm ready for a new adventure!  And the best part is that I will be teaching second grade next door to my close friend. 
" Making a big life change is scary. But know what's even scarier? REGRET." #Chitrchatr #EarlySubscribersPromo
Today was the first day I spent in my new room.  This room is much smaller than my old room and I was nervous but it was all for nothing because everything fits!  (I still have a ton of work to do but I would say today was a great start.)

I got a moving van to haul all my stuff to the new school. I thought a 10 foot truck would be perfect but they only had a 17 foot truck.  Thank goodness that happened because we only JUST got it all in.
This is the inside of the truck :-/
So my first task, after dumping it all in the new room and walking away from it for a week and a half, was to organize my books.  I lost a lot of shelf space.
THEN
Here are my old shelves from the old room:
On top were my leveled books and below were fiction books.
Here were all my non-fiction texts.

NOW

My leveled books stayed the same.  I had to reduce and reorganize my fiction and non-fiction libraries in a MAJOR way.  The fiction texts are in the colored baskets.
More fiction texts.  The black baskets are now filled with my non-fiction texts.
 The empty baskets are the students' book bins.


Then I moved on to the large bulletin boards on either side of the board.  They are a major improvement to my one dinky bulletin board before.

Here are views of the full classroom as it is now.

 I had to bring over my favorite area from my old room!  I love displaying the students' writing in these frames from Lakeshore.

Here is our meeting area (it still needs a rug).


For my Monday Made-It I created a dry erase word wall.  You need peel and stick transparent covering and letters.  My letters are from Wal-Mart in the back to school section.

I decided to center the covering.  I started at the top and stuck three inches on.  Then I slowly uncovered more of the covering and rolled it down the door so it stuck without bubbles.

Then I stuck the letters on with duct tape.

Finally, I was able to write words on the covering with a dry erase marker.  I look forward to the ease of writing it on rather than printing, laminating and taping each word on.

I'm in love with it!

With all these changes, I am feeling excited about the future and all there is to come! 










4 comments:

  1. Jen, this was a fantastic post, thank you. Do you personally own all those levelled texts and fiction and non-fiction books? Have you personally purchased all those baskets etc yourself? I am just asking because I am interested. I am in Australia.
    Kylie
    http://ripperresources.blogspot.com.au/

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  2. Looks great, Jen! LOVE the bulletin boards, super cute. I've also just dumped my things in my new spot, have to get in there this week and start organizing. I feel your pain with needing to downsize the library space, I was spoiled in my old room with those bookshelves!

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  3. Kylie, Thanks! I do own all the books shown in my new classroom and have purchased all the bins and baskets. Over the past 8 years I have acquired the books from friends (when their children outgrow them), Goodwill (I have a $30 budget a month), and a lot of teachers I know get bundles of books from ebay. The bins are from Dollar Tree and Wal-Mart, which you can find online :)
    Thanks Lindsay! I can't wait to see what you'll do in your new room!

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  4. Great post!! Congrats on all your new changes!! Love the pictures...an organized library is essential!

    Kelli

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