Today was our first official in-service day. We had meetings in the morning and were free to work in our classrooms in the afternoon. I walked into my classroom to find 1) the floor beautifully waxed by our amazing custodian, 2) all my furniture piled in the corner (I expected this), 3) ceiling tiles removed (again!), and 4) district electricians pulling wires out of the ceiling. I could deal with the first 3, but the electricians were in the way. I'm ready to have my room to myself for a whole day! Hopefully that day will come soon!
Despite getting a later than expected start, I got a lot done today and I'm feeling much more optimistic about being ready for the first day of school (or at least close to ready).
The custodian helped me move all my furniture back, once the electricians left. That was a quick and painless process. While moving desks, I was reminded of one of the gifts I gave parent volunteers at the end of last year. This fell out of a student desk! I can't believe I didn't find it sooner, and it's been in there since June! Gross!
Then, I set up my classroom meeting/carpet area. Hopefully it won't get totally dirty again or won't have to be moved again. (One of the very large jobs on my to-do list is setting up my class library.)
My desks are back to where they belong. I'm going to have my kids in partners for the first week, all facing forward. I decided this year that I didn't want to start with them in groups because I don't want their first impression to be "We get to talk to each other in this class!" Instead, I want to pre-teach how academic discussions sound and work and build the expectation before putting them in groups.
I don't know if I've taken a picture of my textbook storage. I have table leaders get textbooks for their whole table (meaning only 5 or 6 kids are up and about). It keeps their desks tidier, the textbooks in better condition, and gives responsibility to the group and table leader.
I made this last year to keep extra copies in. I think I saw the idea somewhere on pinterest (sorry, not sure where). It really helps to decrease clutter on my desk. It also helps kids take more responsibility for when they were absent.
This was my project table today. I'll have to finish these projects tomorrow. I found myself with so much to do today, that I couldn't stay focused on one thing. Instead, I skipped around from one thing to another to another. On this table, you can see that I made name tags, but still have to laminate them, got the supplies to organize my filing cabinet, started working on my teacher binder, and started making new student packets.
This is the beginning of a new student packet. I'm trying to put everything a new student would need (no matter when they come in the year) in a ziplock bag. Then, even if given little notice, I can be ready for new students by just pulling out the bag. The beginning of the year is the best time to make these because there's so much that gets passed out to kids and I find that I am more aware of what each student needs.
I made a desktop file for my desk. So simple, but something I didn't have last year. I think it will make a huge difference on the condition of my desk. To copy, To file, To read later.
This is my almost clean desk! I know it still looks messy, but you should've seen it before... well, actually I was too embarrassed to take a picture. My desk was the only piece of furniture that didn't move, so everything that I wanted out of the way got piled onto it. Also notice in this picture that I got a new network cable that is long enough! Yay! Now I have a working teacher computer and can keep up with email, start planning and making electronic files, etc- all the important things!
Tomorrow is an optional day but I will be there all day trying to get my classroom finished (wishful thinking). I will hopefully make more progress tomorrow than I did today and maybe even start thinking about lesson plans for the first few days of school.
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