A new look in room 117!

I finally did it. I made myself go up to school this afternoon and I ended up staying for about 5 hours. I can at least say that I was uber productive though! I left my room in a big mess before Christmas break because I knew that I wanted to do some rearranging. You can go to this post to see how my room looked back in August.

I of course have been so inspired by the Clutter-Free Classroom blog and knew that I wanted to get into my classroom and do some serious decluttering. I had done a decent job of it before leaving for the break, but I do not think a classroom can ever be completely decluttered. Here are some of the pictures I got when I walked into my room today. It was just as I had left it.

I pretty much had a blank slate which was nice. 

The first thing I tackled was the bulletin board that I had near the door that previously had my calendar on it. It was really the only spot in my room where I knew I had enough space to put up my CAFE menu. Yeah for being the only one on campus this afternoon because I got the laminator all to myself! This was one happy teacher! 

I really like how it turned out. I also just typed up all of the strategies and they are in the same polka dot pattern as the header that they go with. 

Next, I moved on to my clear drawers that now contain the contents of what used to be in my desk. I am so glad that I got rid of it! I am even more excited though for the kidney table that I will be getting later this week!

The set of drawers on the left has community supplies. I had to move them to my area because my markers kept disappearing. Who knew 6th graders would love markers that much! The one on the right is full of supplies for myself and when I am meeting with small groups. I have polka dot labels for them that I am putting on tomorrow. 

I also hit some sales at Wal-Mart over the break and restocked on some essentials like pencils, Sharpies, highlighters, glue, etc. This is what I started with before I got it all organized in the proper drawers. 

Before Christmas, I was not liking how I had my desks. I had them in rows, but it just was not working. Since I am going to be using the Daily 5 and CAFE this semester, I knew I wanted to have them in more of a table arrangement. My biggest class this semester only has 21, but I decided to go ahead and keep 22 desks. I really like how it turned out and I was amazed and how much space I still had left over. 

 This is the view from my door.

 View from the corner by my round table.

View from the classroom library bookshelf. 

I also made lots of signs to help keep me organized. I made some for my reading and writing notebooks and also my filing cabinet. 

I also got my pocket chart up for our stations. I am not 100% happy with it yet but I am excited to use the pictures of my students for it instead of their names. 

I am sure that I will go back again tomorrow to get a few more things finished and copied before we all go back on Wednesday.

I was also so excited to find out that Michelle from Making It as a Middle School Teacher gave me the Versatile Blogger Award!

Thanks again for thinking of me, Michelle! You should go check out her blog too! She has some amazing ideas, especially for the middle grades!