Work in Progress

I finally was able to get into my classroom this week! I moved grade levels from kindergarten, back up to 5th grade! So I wasn't necessarily looking forward to unpacking all of my belongings. One nice thing was... my classroom was empty all last year so my principal let me keep up all my paper and borders! What a time saver that was! So the paper you see is the same fadeless paper I've had up since the 2009-2010 school year! I do love fadeless paper, especially because my classroom has such huge walls.

While I'm no where close to being done, I've at least made progress. My main focus was unpacking all the boxes and getting them put away.

Once I did that I was able to work on setting up my class library (a huge undertaking every year!), class supply area, and homework area. I love the look of it so far, the labels really make the area look organized and put together!

I've also discovered some of the letters had an abundance of books, like "R" and "M", while others like "I" had zero. I ended up combining quite a few so that I could utilize more space. I still have a lot of books that I didn't even have room to put out, but I figure I can switch some out around the holidays so my class can have more choices.

I'm so glad I found those labels at Ladybug's Teacher Files... she has great stuff!

I had to adapt and add some of my own, like Rick Riordan and JK Rowling. Their series, Harry Potter and Percy Jackson are hugely popular in 5th grade and I try to have multiple copies so students can read them. I also included a couple of bins for storybooks, because I know sometimes my students just want to relax with a quick read, rather than a chapter book.

I still have quite a bit to do, but it's slowly coming together. Between putting my classroom back together, and working on finishing my Masters, I'm busy but it's worth it!