half way through

I can hardly believe that half of the school year is over! I think I've decided that a blogger's planner is absolutely necessary! This school year has been a bit different than other years. I have a wonderful, sweet group of children. Many of my students receive services outside of my room throughout the day. Others receive special intervention from me. I am so thankful for the boys and girls I get to see everyday, but it has been a challenging year. I am grateful for these experiences, however, because it truly does grow me as a teacher.

I am coming off of my loooong winter track out. We get about 5 weeks off! It is a wonderful break and I really enjoyed it. We celebrated the holidays, visited with family, and did a whole lot of SLEEPING. I am excited to get back to the classroom, though. I made a decision a few weeks ago to part with my clunky ol' teacher's desk. it is big, in the way, and pretty much useless. I was mostly using it for storage. I went to the school last week (it was sooo quiet) and had our awesome custodian take it out of my room. I spent the next FIVE hours rearranging things. I said I wouldn't change much, but once I got started I just couldn't stop. I really love being in my classroom.

One of the things I knew had to change was the location of the classroom library. I originally had it in the corner of the room. That was ok, however it was semi blocked by the large track-out cart. The students got into so much trouble during Daily 5 time because I couldn't always see them in the library...and they knew it. I moved the library to the center of that wall, and moved the track-out cart to a new location. Now, there are no blind-spots in my room!

 

I decided to move the writing station to that back corner where the library used to be. I made sure to pull the writing table out from behind the track-out cart. This is a cute little nook that should work really well for Daily 5

Since I won't have my own desk anymore, I decided to make myself and "office area". The guided reading table will double as my desk. I organized all of the teacher stuff that was in my desk into labeled baggies and placed them in labeled drawers. I got a few other storage units as Christmas gifts (my family knows me well) that worked perfectly for all of those other necessities. I have everything I need for guided reading, math stations, and all things teacher related right here in one location!

Everything has been going really smoothly with my math centers, so I didn't want to change too much with that. Moving my desk provided me with a little more space, so I moved everything math related to one corner. My parents bought me an AWESOME cart (on wheels) with 6 pull out containers with snap on lids. PERFECT for math centers. Now, that students will be able to take 1 container with them to their seat to complete their activity. It will be so much easier to keep clean and organized. I'm really excited about that!!

Well, tomorrow is my first mandatory workday, so I'd better get some sleep.