The Making of a Classroom

Welcome to setting up for the 2017-2018 school year!  Every year, before I start setting up my room, I start mapping it out on pieces of paper, and prioritizing things.  This year, my school is doing a choice reading focus that has reading material in various spots in the classroom, and we get to focus on purposeful play (YAY!!!!!!).  I also like to have independent work for math and literacy be center-based, and of course I love to be able to see most of my room no matter where I am.

I don't like to wait until our contracts start in August to go in to my room.  I know, I'm crazy.  Let me explain.  I spend ALOT of time in my classroom over the school year.  A LOT!  And, after the year gets started, as you all know, it is extremely difficult to find time to rearrange it.  I like to go in, set it up, go home and think about things, and continue.  My husband things I'm crazy, which is probably correct.  Like I said, I want to make sure I only have to set it up once, and I don't like to always use the same set-up.

I tend to think of my classroom set up process as going thru 3 different phases.
1. General Set-Up
2. Big decorations, clean stuff out
3. LABEL EVERYTHING, finishing details.

Here are few pics of my class in phase 1.  Lots of Setting up, taking down, moving here, moving there, going home, processing......and starting all over!  This is the view from my desk, looking towards the front door.

This is from my desk looking to the back of the room.

This is from the back door, looking to the front of the room.

Today is the second day that we actually had to report.  This means the AC is turned on again, and I don't resemble Mufasa while in my classroom.  So that's a plus!  I'm still working on setting up a few things, but it has come a long way.

  

This is a view from the back door.  I got most of my vines hung up, and yes, I'm doing a fun jungle theme this year :-) 

This is the view from the back of my room, looking to the other back corner.  This is where my art center, painting area, and dramatic play areas will be.  

This is a picture of my cabinets, with my color posters.  

Here is a close-up of my Jungle shape posters.  You can purchase my Jungle Classroom Set Here.

This picture is of my calendar set.  I have patterned calendar cards, which change from month to month based on themes that go with that month, and the pattern structure changes as well.  It starts with AB patterns, and evolves to more complex patterns as the year goes on.  As you can see, I still have decorating to do.

This last picture is of my science area.  One of my goals this year to do have an engaging science center during the year.  I feel like science is something kids can get really excited about, but it's something I've never really felt like I have done it well.  Be sure to look for more ideas in the science area!  You can also see my math and literacy center towers.  I'll go over that at another time.  

With that, I bid you a goodnight.  I'm going to be working hard in the coming days, and hope to have some progress to show you soon.  May your school year start well, and your meetings be short!