Classroom Day 3 and a 1st birthday!

Before I begin, I want to make sure you all know about the amazing sale that's going to happen this Sunday and Monday. Many stores will have their items for 20% off, and then there's a code to get 10% off of that! I'm participating along with a ton of other bloggers, so grab the code, make your wishlist, and get ready to shop!

Photo courtesy of Ms. Jessica at A Turn to Learn

Steven and I went up to the school Monday with Keagan hoping to get some work done, but we barely accomplished anything. So I decided to try again yesterday. One of my friends has an 8-yr-old girl, so we decided to trade kids for the day. I brought Bailey to work with me so she could help me, and Jenny got to play with Keagan. I call it a win, win! Bailey was a huge help, and I was much more motivated. Plus I finally had a vision of the best way to place my furniture, etc. I was even able to start decorating a little! I only took 3 pictures (which is about all you need to see the entire room. It's small), but here's a glimpse of how it looks so far!

I remembered on my way home from picking up Keagan that I have one more bookshelf to fit into the room (it was misplaced), but I can move my CAFE board and fit it beside the rest of the books. I think I'm going to use that colorful organizer to make copies of multiple levels of the Fountis and Pinnell running records since that's what my school is switching to. I want the room to be very teacher-friendly so they are encouraged to come by and grab what they need. Unfortunately, I need a lot more space to do that well. For now, this will work.

My "desk area". I went to Target after finishing and saw one of those drawer units for $10. I'm just going to get one of those to stick under the table. I think it will actually work perfect. As for the clear hanging things, I'm keeping one, but I haven't decided if I'm going to move the others or what. And all those books on the wall are my personal books that I had to pull out of my old classroom library. I wasn't able to fit them all. Bailey said I had too many books. I disagree!

Can anybody spot what's wrong in this picture? When I was in the classroom, I didn't say anything, but the first kid to notice what was wrong got to replace one test grade with a 100. I still need to find a home for this CD player, maybe. I want to get iPods and iPads to start a listening area. Maybe I'll start a Donor's Choose wishlist. The cart is full of things that are more useful for K-2, so I need to label them well and then send them to the K-2 Title I teacher. It will be nice to have all of them out of the room and next door so I can borrow when I need them. Oh, and I really hope they dump out my trash. It hasn't been dumped since I came in my room last week.

I'm pretty proud of how everything looks!! Even if I don't end up doing a specific theme this year, it's starting to come together and feel nice. I do need to get a rug and found one online today that I'm in love with! This one's only $39 at Walmart, and I could keep it to take wherever I go. So cute! I think I may be heartbroken if Steven says no (I just talked to him and he said we'll see after paychecks next week!)

Okay, I wanted to link where I got some of my cute resources!

CAFE headers - Ladybudy's Teacher Files (the link I gave goes to her CAFE, CRAFT, and VOICES headers)

 I also downloaded the lined paper to make my strategy cards, but I messed up and need to redo them. Besides, those won't go up until we get to each one.

The Essential 15 - Link from Blog Hoppin', courtesy of Hope King, Second Grade Shenanigans.

These are above my desk and on one of my storage cabinets.

And one last picture to leave you with:

Last night, we visited with Maggie (Keagan's girlfriend) and family to celebrate her 1st birthday! These are most of the kids from our small group (and to think only two were with us at the beginning!) Ages range from 4 years - 6 months. Here they're in order from oldest to youngest. Keagan's next in this line-up, although we have one more in between! I can't believe how quickly they're all growing up. I remember each of these kids being born!