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change is good

MY CLASSROOM TRANSITION 
(it felt like an episode of hoarders/extreme home makeover)
this is the classroom i walked into three and a half weeks ago. four days before my students started.


yeah. (the vision in pink is my guardian angel, mrs. jones, who literally helps me to survive every single day. her first act of grace was helping me with this room. bless her heart.)



chaos.


cleaning. i honestly think "hoarders" could hire me to help after this ordeal.


just keep enjoying.


AND then, after four days of hard work, including help from the amazing and selfless muresuk mena, my room was ready for the students to arrive.

it wasn't perfect, but it looked like a classroom.

check out that beautiful, brand new SMART board
 

clean, organized (ish), right?


beautiful clean whiteboards!

My desk has never looked and will never look this clean ever again. 


READY FOR KIDDOS!



:)

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And then after day one I realized that having our desks in pods was just NOT going to work for us quite yet. So we tried rows. I hate it, but we tried it.


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but by the end of the first week i knew rows were going to KILL me. so we tried the "U" formation.


I LOVE IT. It means that every single student is within my reach at all times, rather than me playing that game of zig-zagging between their rows of desks whenever someone raises their hand. I LOVE IT.

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end week 3: we've now covered all shelves with colorful table cloths because we struggle with knowing which things we are allowed to touch (especially things like ms forster's scissors), take or use as weapons. we're working on it.


end week 3: we've got an accountability system (students get stickers next to their name for completing assignments to the best of their ability), a bathroom check-in/check-out chart to help those of us that think we  need to use the bathroom 3 times in a 90 minute period, a time-out teddy station, and color-coded groups for writing centers.

the SMART board is getting it's butt kicked by ms. forster, who uses it like a champ. thank you gustavus (kids go to other classrooms and tell their other teachers the cool things ms. forster can do on the SMART board...THAT'S WHAT'S UP)


and we are proudly displaying our writing on the wall outside of the classroom.


If I've learned one thing in the past three weeks, it's that NOTHING is ever permanent in a classroom. You have to change, try new things, adjust, try again, change, adjust and try again CONSTANTLY. I guess that's what makes this job so special. It's definitely NEVER boring. Literally. NEVER. Seriously. 

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