Monday Made It: June 29

Why, hello there! Life's been a little nuts for the last week or so, so I took a break. Hopefully, I can get back in the swing of things around here!

I'm linking up again with Tara from 4th Grade Frolics for Monday Made It!

Today I have two things for you. The first is a little sneak peek into my classroom (because I made a mess today), and the second is something I made to help keep me organized (yeah right).

This morning, we got the go-ahead to get back in our classrooms and start the set-up, so of course, I did. When we leave school at the end of the year, we stack all of our furniture on our carpet. So, today, I got all the tables where I think I want them (for now anyway). I guess I'm going to call that my first Monday Made It. Here is a little sneak peek…you'll have to wait until the final reveal to see more!!!

Sorry these might be a little blurry, I took them in a hurry.

Here is where all my furniture (plus other junk resources used my teachers) was stored. Woohoo!

Here is the front left of the classroom with my sink, water fountain, and Word Wall.

Here is the back left of the classroom with cubbies and my lovely catch-all counter.

The back right: number chart, outside door, math practices, and essential questions.

And here is the progress I made today thanks to my BFF Tiff (and her daughter and father)! We moved all the tables off the carpet except one I'm giving to Tiff for all her hard work :)

Here you can see my Teacher Table in front of the cubbies and counter. I also have two large tables and a smaller one here. The two larger ones are student tables, and I'm going to try to make the smaller table my media table with my projector, Elmo, and laptop. I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with my media cart so I want to see if I can do without it. Thoughts?

Another set of student tables in the middle of the room, two computer tables under the blue bulletin board, and a small table to the left of my outside door for any assistant that comes in to work with students. You can also see my podium (which usually sits outside my door in the hallway) stacked high with computer towers…oh the joys of summer computer updates.

Here is the carpet area (so far). The table is the one for Tiff, and then I just have to sort through the rest of the stuff and put it away. I'm not really looking forward to that. Although I know that my cloffice (closet/office) will be much worse to deal with. It looks like I had a paperwork firework show in there…I hate filing!

This is the front left again. You can see the Word Wall and the long table will be home to two centers. 

Once upon a time, I had two white bookshelves, so I put them in an L shape around a corner. I don't love it, but I'm hoping it will be functional. The one under the blue chart will be a center, and the one by the vent might possibly hold their Brain Books and D.O.T. Binders. Brain Books are just binders that have individualized practice items inside for use when we have down time or when we have a sub. D.O.T. Binders are their take-home binders. I got the idea from Ashley at The Polka Dot Patch. Here is the direct link to the post she wrote. More about both of those binders closer to school.

And here is another little Monday Made It. 

I'm so excited about this ya'll. Yes, I know you can buy those write-on/wipe-off boards, but they aren't as cute as this!

A school year calendar that is HUGE and I can write on it!!!!!!!! 

All I did was print out a 12 monthly calendars for August through May. I'm not really sure where I got this calendar, I'll keep searching, but it might have just been from Word on my computer. Anyway, I printed it out, cut off some of the excess then taped it onto a cork board I already had at home for patterning and sewing. I was going to staple it, but this is a cheap cork board, and the staples only went in about a millimeter, so I reverted to tape and it has held up so far. I think the board might be somewhere around 36"x48" for those of you who need measurements to get a clearer picture. 

After taping it down, I grabbed four different colored markers and outlined each quarter. That way I can clearly see that Quarter 1 ends 5 days into October, and then we have a break. I also went ahead and put the district calendar dates such as Professional Learning days, Administrative days, BREAKS (can't forget those), and any other important dates.  

My goal is to bring this to my grade group's planning meetings we have each quarter. I'm hoping it will us all see what we have planned when. Here's to hoping!