Stepping back into the classroom for the first time after summer break is exciting, but sometimes nerve racking! I am not sure what the procedures are at your school, but here is what we have to do for the cleaning crew: everything must be off of bookcases, shelves, etc. so that they can move everything out into the hall to do the floor; we can leave up our bulletin boards; label everything with the room number.
I wish I had a picture from the end of the year when I left so that you could see the ridiculous pile of ”stuff” on my counter tops! So after the lovely cleaning crew finishes the classroom, they TRY to furniture back where it belongs. Key word…try. My reading table was on the left and was supposed to be on the right side of my classroom. That meant the teacher desks were on the wrong side of the room as were the file cabinets. I think it is hilarious how my desks were arranged too…in tidy little rows facing forward (okay B+ for effort there) and then 5 random desks were on my carpet at my whole group area.
Image may be NSFW.
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Image may be NSFW.
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Time for some heavy lifting and shoving of furniture! The one good thing is that our floors are some kind of poured concrete. They aren’t waxed and they don’t get scratched! So pushing a completely full filing cabinet across the room is a non-issue! So that is what I did and here is where everything is suppose to be.
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By now I am all sweaty and not really feeling like doing much else, but I pushed on for a little while longer. I needed to get all of the things that had been put up on the counter back where they belonged. Some things had already been moved back onto shelves by the cleaning crew…so it wasn’t a terrible task. I didn’t put my book tubs back on floor though, because I am about to tackle the job of switching over from “themed” book tubs (Animals, Dr. Seuss, Realistic Fiction etc.) to “leveled” book tubs. So the book tubs got placed on the desks.
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Image may be NSFW.
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I know it doesn’t look like a lot of books, but I had to consolidate the books together to fit everything on the counter. I have roughly 25 book tubs. I have been thinning things out over the past year…getting rid of worn out books that are missing pages and falling apart. After all, I have to make room for new books each year!
I am planning on using an app that I have on my phone called “Level It”. You can use this app to scan the ISBN on the back of the book and it will give you a guided reading level, if it is in their data base. If you don’t have this app, you should get it. I do think it costs $2.99 but it is so worth it. I will let you know later how the leveling goes! If you are interested in the app, just click on the link next to the icon. Thanks for stopping by!
~Nancy
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