Start the School Year: Classroom Setup

Tomorrow, I am heading off to my new classroom, although we do not report to work until August first, to get ready to start the school year by setting up my space. I changed schools for this year and will also be teaching a different grade level, so I really feel like I have a lot to do and not much time to do it. I figure I can knock out a few things on my to do list tomorrow and then enjoy some more summer days before I head back to school for real. This is what my new classroom looked like when I first walked through the door. 

There is a lot of potential for this space. I love that it is a much bigger size than my classroom last year. I also am pretty stinkin' excited about using tables instead of desks...so much easier to keep things neat and tidy. I like the windows on one side of the classroom too. I am so thankful for a sink and drinking fountain right in my classroom! A sink in the classroom is a real game changer! The bathrooms for my class are in the hallway right outside my room and I can see the doors from my classroom. 

I am a big overwhelmed with having to unpack and set up and sort and do all the things before school starts, so I am just going to get in there are do a few things to help it feel like home quickly. 

Tomorrow, I am planning to recover the bulletin boards with new paper and add borders later....my borders, although ordered on Prime, are taking longer than two days, so the boards will be borderless in the meantime. I am also planning to work on arranging my classroom. If I can get the arrangement of the furniture done, it will be easier to add the decorative touches. I will try to unpack my books and start to sort those into different bins or spaces. I am also interested to check out everything that is in the room and take an inventory of what I may still need to get the school year started.  I have several types of organizational bins to help out in getting things set up and organized, but will still need to pick up some in a shoe box size. These are my favorite ones and what I have had the past two years in my previous classrooms...yes, I have moved for the last three years. First I switched grade levels and classrooms within the same school. Then my school closed and opened in a different location. Now I am moving to a completely different school in a different town, although I taught at this school previously (nine years ago).

I have also had my eyes on these 12x12 boxes from Michaels and I was able to purchase several on sale and with gift cards, so barely any money came out of my pocket for these. I call that a win!

I searched around and finally found some of these little snack containers at Dollar Tree. They were just three for a dollar! Score! I love using these for individual sets of manipulatives. They are perfect. I had a bunch of these in my previous classroom, but they were not mine personally, so I needed to pick some up and now they are mine so they can go wherever I do.

I have high hopes that tomorrow I can be super productive. I need to get a lot done! I want my classroom to start looking like I envision it. I also have a lot of projects going for my classroom with a big addition that I am working on building with my husband...neither one of us really has any construction know-how or experience, so I hope it turns out to be as easy as the tutorial we saw. I will let you know about all that in another post once it is done...if it all turns out!