How to set up a classroom in six days: Day 1

Did you get hired super last minute? Are you a procrastinator? Did you (like me) get an amazing chance to work at a new school, only to be let in a week before school starts?

If you said yes to any of these, this next set of posts is for you.

School starts in one week from today and I was able to move my supplies into my classroom today. Setting up class in a week is tough. I only worked until 3:00 today and then I was spent. It is however possible. (Okay, I'm not actually done yet. This is just a prediction.) I will take you on a journey to prove it to you.
Here are the day 1 highlights:
(This is probably the most boring day. Yawn.)

7:00
I pull up to the school, husband close behind. Our Subarus are filled with all the supplies I brought home to revamp and all the crafts I made over the summer. We check in with the janitor to make sure there are no special instructions and start unloading the cars.

I was so excited to see my awesome star tables had been set up the previous night. Aren't they beautiful? More info on them later.

7:15
We finished unloading both cars and drove to my old school to load them up again and again and again (three trips total). During one of those trips, a lovely large box appeared in my room.
My district is going to move to TVs instead of projectors in the future. We are the first elementary school to be fitted with these beauties. 70". Not too shabby.

10:30
We finished moving everything in just a few hours sans dolly or other rolling apparatus. (Confession: when we moved the boxes full of books, I did steal a chair with wheels on the bottom to roll those into the classroom, but it's just because we were exhausted by that point.)

My classroom was stuffed!

The television was unveiled! At one point I had over a dozen district janitorial/construction crew in my classroom showing each other how to hang it up. It was rather entertaining and a bit freaky when one mentioned that even with the sturdy wall bracket, he thought the TV wasn't as secure as it should be...
Husband told me that I should inform the kids of the first rule of earthquake safety: run away from the television.

We took a lunch break and shortly thereafter, the television was placed upon the wall. The bracket is designed as to be pulled out at an angle so I can permanently or temporarily direct it more towards the class.

We worked through more and more boxes. It took a while for us to get a good rhythm going. We found it was best for my husband to have menial, monotonous tasks while I did the organizing and emptying of boxes.

I spy a Wolf.

My husband convinced me to leave at 3:00 with him (he had work). I am glad I agreed to that. I was getting so exhausted that I would sit on the ground for long periods of time and was not being very productive. Here's our pile of boxes we cleared out.

My classroom isn't even technically done. I'm missing two whiteboards, five (or four-I never got a definitive answer) bulletin boards, the carpet lining that goes on the base of the wall, a 2"x4" piece of carpet, and electrics to be sorted (the skylights only turn on when the lights are on...not terribly useful).
At least I don't teach first or second grade. They were denied access from 11:00 yesterday morning to 9:00 tomorrow morning.

Stay tuned for tomorrow. I hope to get rid of almost all my boxes.

See my other days of organizing:
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6

Move-in Tomorrow!

I'm in a sort of funk tonight.
You know the feeling that you had when you were little the day before Christmas or standing in line, waiting for your dad to buy tickets to get into Disneyland? That super excited, thrilled feeling? I have had the same type of anticipatory feelings today. They started a couple weeks ago and started growing until the climax arrived tonight.
I get to move into my brand new classroom tomorrow.
There are no neon-colored frosting stains on it from students dropping their cupcakes on the carpet (it always lands frosting side down). No student has had a long drink from the drinking fountain. It has not been engulfed in the stench of thirty fifth graders, fresh from a long, hot recess. No one has stained the whiteboards with the neon colored markers I specifically ask them not to buy (last time I was in there, there technically were no whiteboards...hopefully they have been installed). The cubbies have yet to house backpacks bulging with papers the students should have taken out months ago for their parents to sign and return. There has yet to be a brand new class of eager children, anxious (at least on the first day) to come to school, interact, and learn something.
School starts in a week from tomorrow. That's right. In a week and twelve hours (roughly), I'll bring in half my class and begin the wonderful first day of school for a group of kids that will only know half of their classmates, at most.
This year will be an amazing one.

These pictures were taken a week ago. Exactly two weeks before school starts. I don't know about you, but I feel like a school should be all the way done two weeks before it starts.
I do, however, love everything about the school especially the colors.

Because I have been classroom-less all summer, I got to make everything at home and in our temporary office in a nearby school. One thing I love about teaching is being able to design and make awesome things.

Stay tuned. If I am not completely wiped out, I'll do updates daily to show the progression of how to set up an amazing, adorable, functional classroom in only a week.

Table Numbers

My table numbers have morphed through the years. They have always been hot air balloons, but they started out as plain paper balloons like so:

They were cute enough...but a little abstract for me. The next school changed them into a combination of fabric and paper

Which I once again loved. Those paper numbers took over a half hour each to make. At the end of last year, I wanted a slight tweak. (Maybe it's only when I change schools that the balloons need to change. The last model stayed the same the whole time I was at my last school.)
My needs for table numbers are as follows:

• I wanted a sturdier basket. It is inevitable that at least two balloons will fall down during the year. This usually happens when I am hanging something else on my ceiling, forget that I have something wedged in that particular ceiling tile and down comes the balloon (followed by dramatic gasps from my students). The basket would be crushed.
• I want the basket to look more realistic. Last model's basket was cute, but I love the woven look of real hot air balloons.
• Although I adore the numbers I made, I was up for a change. Some of the paper I used was not nearly as cute as I would have liked. (One and six. And two. Basically I only liked three, four, and five.)

As most of you, I love the Target dollar spot. I spotted some adorable glitter numbers in both black and gold. My husband tried to distract me and get me to the checkout lines, but seven words made him turn around and frantically help me find numbers.
"I won't have to make 3D letters!"
He loves it when I do less work.
Alas, there was not a complete set of gold or black letters so that intelligent man pointed out we could do odds one color and evens the other. It's nice being married to someone intelligent.
I highlighted my new baskets a few weeks ago. This time, those were my time consumers. Over half an hour each for those, but I have a feeling that when inevitably the balloons get knocked from the ceiling, the baskets will look awesome.

And here are a couple numbers all put together

(Treadmills make the best backdrop!)

I was at a family reunion for most of last week, so I did not have time to make much. I did finish painting a little table I keep in my classroom. She's old (about as old as me) and beat up (my sister once painted the entire thing with puff paint-now that was hard to sand off), but she works just perfectly in my classroom. I just have to spray a protective coat and she will be ready to face a hoard of fifth graders.

Linking up

More and More Banners

Last week I had the opportunity to help give the school board a tour of my school. They meandered around, making comments and asking questions. A photographer snapped pictures occasionally of the rooms that have slowly become classrooms.

My classroom looks almost ready to go! I have a ceiling, electricity, and running water. All I need is carpet, whiteboards, and bulletin boards.

I am excited to visit again soon. The building inspector's visit is scheduled for a week from today. We are all crossing our fingers that he (or she) will find nothing wrong and will give us the green light to move in a week from Monday.

Even my skylights open and close now. I am a pretty lucky girl.

One thing that I made the last couple of weeks is pizza. Lots and lots of pizza. I have perfected the easy dough recipe I found and have been harvesting our basil like crazy. I could eat this every day. (For a while, I was eating it every day.)

Another creation I made are these awesome gold magnet letters. My only complaint with the generic magnet letters is that they only give you one letter per pack. Why do I need three q's but only have three e's? My awesome landlord's kids enjoyed spelling out their names the last time they visited.

Finally, I have been making more and more banners. I love this one because it is a specific font. I can string my twine through the stars for this easy one.

I ran out of ideas for shapes for my banners. Because I have been creating these banners like crazy, I wanted each one to be a bit different. This one is very different. They look like ghosts to me.

I adore this one. Each letter sits on a tag shape.

My spelling banner consists of scalloped rectangles.

And...guess what this one is supposed to spell? It doesn't help that you can't read the letters very well or that I am missing a letter.

Last, but not least is my outside welcome banner. Gold glitter doilies with two sets of circles (one scalloped, one regular) and green striped letters on top. It's simple and classy.

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Birthday Banner

I think birthdays (or half birthdays) in the classroom are a wonderful thing. I don't go over the top to celebrate or take up more than five minutes for the birthday kid, but I like to do small things to make them feel special. I try to remember a few days in advance how excited they are for their birthday. On the big day, I try to call them "birthday boy/girl" at least a few times. A few months ago, I thought of another thing I could do to make it just a little more special.
Last year, I was cleaning out my drawer that holds all my (dozens of) banners during recess. Some of my adorable girls were helping out and they saw a store bought birthday banner that some of my students bought me my first year of teaching. They got really excited because it just so happened to be someone's birthday on that very day! The girls grabbed it and hung it up on the back whiteboard. That got me thinking...
What if I made a cuter banner to hang up on a kid's birthday (or the school day in which the child was being celebrated)? Any teacher could do that and hang it up in the classroom, but what if I hung it up outside of the classroom so that any passer by would see that someone was having a birthday in my classroom, just to casually announce it to the world? And so my birthday banner was born. It took a while to make the gold dangly pieces because I didn't have the exact type of material that I would have liked, but in the end, it may just be my favorite banner I have ever made. (And that's saying something.)
I love the glitter lettering. I love the shape of the letters. I love the gold tassels. I love the paper that looks just a bit like it has birthday confetti on it. (I was even going to add pompoms to the point of each banner piece, but I thought that might be going a bit overboard...)
I love it.
On either side of my doorway at school, I will permanently put up a couple of clothespins (with gold stars on them) so that assembly and removal of the banner will be a piece of cake. In fact, I'll probably give the job of hanging the banner to my students. Because students like to be helpful and stand on chairs and hang things up. (Also, if I forget...someone else can take the blame.)

p.s. Do you love the wall? That has been the great project this summer for my husband and me. We have painted everything except for the tall wall towering over the stairs.
Also, yesterday I talked about what I do with all of those paper scraps I get while making these projects.

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Stress Reliever

My husband commented to me the other day that I need to make things. I get too bored if I have nothing to do for too long. Crafting is my stress reliever. I am running out of things to make for the upcoming school year and I don't know what to do next...

The first thing I am making is ruffles. Lots and lots of ruffles on my vintage Bernina. The stitch length is as wide as it will go and as I sew, I barely hold onto the thread. It ruffles perfectly! It is also pretty to look at. I have made a ruffle roll out of what I have made so far. It's so pretty! You'll have to come back in a couple weeks to see how I use this in my classroom. This one is simply decor. (They do make great chic streamers also.)

I also made vocabulary cards for both my science units this year. I will laminate them, put a magnet on the back, and have them up on the whiteboard whenever I am teaching about that concept.

More science supplies. One of my units is inherited traits.

Because I have been using a lot of paper lately, I have a lot of larger paper scraps. When the scraps are large, I cut them into rectangles and bring them into my classroom for my students to use for their creations. If I have smaller scraps, I make these awesome bookmarks for my students.

If I just have a bit of paper, I cut it into long strips for regular bookmarks. I want to have a bookmark bin for students this year.

I also redid my calendar. I still love my old calendar, but this one is more visible. The numbers on my last calendar were tricky to see from the back of the classroom.

Bad Pictures of Cute Banners

In the past, I have labeled my bulletin boards, but only with flimsy paper letters that I threw away when I changed up the boards and the later regretted throwing away the letters because I needed to cut out a new label.
Earlier this week, I cut out lots of banner shapes out of double-sided cardstock and then cut out letters for my bulletin boards. I laminated them separately so that if I want to change what one says, I can easily take off the laminated letters and file them away.
Taking pictures of lamination is tricky. I'll get better images once they are hung up in my classroom.

One for Class Dojo. I switched my rewards system last year from punch cards to Class Dojo. It is much simpler and super easy to pull out my phone to give points. There are magnet boards that the kids move up every day.
The front side has green dots on it and the back is covered with blue and green leaves.

I want my math groups to be better organized this year. There will be a spot in the classroom that holds all the materials. The front side is green dots on white and the back has straight green vines over green.

I have social studies on bulletin boards a few times each year. I did the letters over a map of the world paper and the back is a pink lattice paper.

My school is piloting genius hour in my district. We won't even have the technology for a month or two to fully implement it, but I already have an awesome bulletin board designed in my mind. This paper was single sided.

This one is probably my favorite. I might have to make two smaller banners to outline matter and heredity. The frond is black arrows and the back is gray triangles.

I also spray painted some of my own school supplies gold. My students last year were really into making things and I often found them leaning over my stuff to grab my stapler (even though there was one for them to use with much easier access.) My rule this year? If it's gold, it's mine. Don't touch.
(Side note: You can see my name smudging off the stapler. The only reason I put my name on it is because my student stapler disappeared last year. I still don't know what happened to it, but in all innocence, I imagine someone accidentally took it and because there was no name, they did not know who to give it to.)

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