one day at a time

Today was Day 4 of setting up my classroom. It's slow-going this year. I've known since last year that I wanted to look for another teaching job, so when I packed up my room in June, I REALLY packed. I sorted everything (books, posters, supplies) into two piles: things that are mine (i.e. paid for with my money or brought from home) and things that belong to the school. In the event that I got a job in another school or district, I wouldn't have to spend all summer sorting through everything trying to figure out what was mine. I also took every single decoration off the walls... including things that normally stay up, like my alphabet and my number line.

Since I didn't get a job, it wound up just making more work for me. When I went back last week to set up, I had to start from scratch. I had to re-sort all my books into baskets by author or subject, I had to go through two piles of posters to see what needed to be hung up, I had to rehang my alphabet and my number line. Tedious.

By the time I left today, most of the big stuff was finished. My calendar corner is set up, my reading corner is finished (and looks much better than before), and I have a bulletin board started. I have 16 desks out, but I have no idea how many kids are in my room this year. I heard that 8 are officially registered. The rest will come trickling in soon enough. I don't anticipate more than 20, since there were only 19 in last year's kindergarten class. We'll see.

The kids don't start 'til after Labor Day, so I still have plenty of time to finish setting up. I'll get some pics up soon... when it starts looking more like a classroom, lol.