New School Year, New Classroom, New Friends

My family has recently relocated.  There, I said it.  It's a lot easier to say that to actually do it.  If I was making an anchor chart of things you have to do when you move, I'd need a whole pack of chart paper.  Let's see... find a job, find somewhere to live (but you might want to do this AFTER you find a job), find new doctors, find childcare for Sydney Boo... this doesn't even touch the whole "packing and moving" aspect of relocating.

Teachers have a built in time in the calendar year for such a transition= Summer Vacation.  I couldn't imagine relocating without 3 months of downtime (which isn't much like downtime when you're relocating).  Okay, let's focus on the positive things... I am so thankful for summer vacation.  It really made relocating much easier.

Things have settled down and we are taking care of each of those items on our "Relocating" anchor chart.  I have been moving into my new kindergarten classroom and new school district during the past week.  Two days were spent at a new teacher institute.  I can say that this time was actually very helpful, even though I've been teaching for 5 years.  This school district gave training on the curriculum currently in place in their county.

The rest of the week gave me time to work in my classroom.  When I walked in, I found a very clean classroom.  This hasn't always been my experience, so I came prepared with cleaning supplies.  I still had some sprucing up to do, but the custodial staff had really done a nice job in my room this summer.  Here are my before shots:

  This view is from the classroom door.  Check out the super sweet blue walls!  I LOVE them!  (The tables in this photo are not the tables I ended up keeping.)  Notice the plethora of furniture!

Here's the the view from the back corner of the room.  The little door on the left leads to our private bathroom (holla!) with the sink being located just outside of the door.  I have two coatracks, 4 bulletin boards, 1 kidney table, 1 teacher desk, 4 student tables and some bonus furniture!  

I'd also like to say "thank you" to the room's previous occupants for leaving the number line and 2 alphabet strips posted.  Those are probably my least favorite thing to put up, so I'm grateful that I don't have to this year!

So this is the classroom, a very cool blue, with lots of great furniture.  Stay tuned as I explore the contents of the classroom, start to get organized, and make it a learner's delight.