Classroom Reveal!

I can't believe it's only the second of day of school and I'm already so exhausted! And there are no children yet. I'm in big trouble.

I've been working like crazy trying to get my room finished. And not just finished for day one, but planned and considered for the entire year. Because I'm not moving anything. At. All.

So here's my room when I first walked back in after the summer:

Bleak.

I decided to do a chevron theme in my room this year--bye bye, Dr. Suess!-- so I've gone a little zig zag crazy and Pinterest obsessed.

First, I remade new word wall cards while I was stil at camp. This year they're all typed, framed in chevron, and color coded for their level. Now, I can change the word cards easily throughout the year quickly. Or at least that's the plan.

Old word wall cards

New cards! And guinea pig lovin'

After being inspired by these pins:

I headed to Ikea to get 2 Expedit bookshelves and a plain white Erslev rug. After navigating my wild cart solo (and making friends with another young teacher buying bookcases for her room, too), I got to calculating. I think I picked the absolute hardest pattern to create, and even had to call in the math-grad-school boyfriend for consulting.

First ever solo Ikea trip... not a good idea

All the math and mosquitos and time spent were worth it, because here's my baby:

I. LOVE. YOU.

New extended library area

Inspired by this, which I saw sometime last year:

I made this one with my Cricut:

And Abby Mullins' calendar board to go with Cara Carroll's calendar companion.

Hers

My Carbon Copy

So after all of those projects, here is my new room! I am absolutely in love, I will never move a thing and am never changing my theme. It was so much easier this year to get it set up because I had a clear expectation for what I needed each area to provide for students. I really thought about the functionality of the space, their eye level, and what would be the easiest maintenance for me day to day.

New Whole group area: bigger easel, bigger space, comfier chair (not in this picture yet), ABCs are lower on the wall

Teacher books grouped in a way that makes sense to me, consolidated materials that I need

Question of the day, calendar area

New password of the day with magnet instead of dry erase, this way I can just switch the words in 5 seconds as opposed to scrubbing off markers while kids are walking on top of me to get in 

Writing center is blank for now until we do launch lessons, all month word banks are printed and laminated and hung up

Author's chair new pom pom flair!

New book sox chair pockets so they can't play with white boards and their pennies and dice in secret inside their desks

Transportation tags with clothespins so it's easier to change

Magnetic surface from file cabinet for word sorts in word work

New condensed focus board, next to whole group area so we can reference them more

Class job list

Oh yeah. I faux-upholstered my chair in chevron.

Word wall is ready and waiting

And, my best friend in this entire process:

(And Caitlin M for helping me on day 1 and not blocking my number after sending her picture after picture of my progress all week)

So that's it! I have all day tomorrow in my room and then firsties come on Friday. No plans are done or copies made. 

But I still haven't cried or puked.

Yayyyyyy.