It’s THAT time of year again! I go back into the classroom for pre-planning in just over 1 week and meet my students on August 12th! We are going back to school 2 weeks earlier than we normally do which made my summer seem super short. This will be my TENTH year in the classroom and for the first time ever, I won’t be in my classroom for more than 1 day before pre-planning.
Have a seat and let me give you the real deal. I love my job and I love my students but the end of last year was rough. A combination of personal issues, stress, trying to do all and be all for everyone, left me feeling completely drained. The last day of post-planning, I cleared off the top of my desk, picked up the things that had to be moved off the floor, and walked out the door. I left my bulletin boards up, books on the shelves, things on the walls, and probably some food in the fridge – I just had to get home and go do some fun things with my family. The great thing is that I’ve been so busy traveling and relaxing and enjoying not worrying about any other children but my own for a bit that I did not feel the pull to go into school and get started on setting up that “perfect” classroom.
Well, I’ve had enough down time and now I am ready and EXCITED to get back to it. I’ve spent the last two weeks in professional development learning how to teach VEX Robotics to my 5th graders this year. I am super excited about robotics! Our 5th grade team needed to go in and get the Lab ready today. This entailed moving all of the junk out of the room (begin rant – why, oh why, does any room with any extra space in school that is not used on a regular basis become a repository for any and all junk? People, if you don’t want it, and no one else wants it, please, just throw it away!-end rant). We set up the tables and unpacked all of the robotics kits. It’s going to be amazing. Learning new things and teaching new things is my passion! I’m also excited that we are departmentalizing our 5th grade this year and I’m only teaching math and science. If you haven’t guessed, math and science are my favorite subjects to teach.
Since I was at school, I spent a few hours working in my room. Guess what I had to do? Yup, clean up all the mess I didn’t deal with in June. This is what I walked into. It doesn’t look bad, right?
Since, I’m only teaching Math and Science (and an hour of reading intervention), I decided to get rid of my beloved I{Heart}Reading bulletin board (I’ll give you more details on that interactive board in my next post) so that I could have a dedicated Science and a Math bulletin board I also took down the Language Arts bulletin boards and posters, cleaned, and set up the desks and chairs. Whew, that took me two hours!
I decided to go with a Chalkboard and Burlap Decor this year. I am a fan of black – it goes with everything and a black background on a bulletin board just makes everything “pop” and I love the texture that burlap offers. I haven’t gotten very far in putting my room together but I’m using my own Chalk & Burlap Classroom Decor Pack. Here is a sneak peek:
Click on the image to see the full product and other decor ideas in my Teachers Pay Teachers store.
I love this look and can’t wait to show you my finished classroom! What is your classroom theme this year? More importantly, what are you EXCITED about for the new school year?
Live, laugh, love to learn!
Debbie
Leave a Reply