Classroom set up…done!

This week I went to school and set up my classroom. This is an annual ritual that teachers like me go through prior to the beginning of every school year. In my situation, the principal usually opens up days at the beginning of the month of August to let those of us that want our rooms set up, to come in and do so before "teacher week." Setting our rooms up before "teacher week" allows us to be more present with the inevitable meetings and other things that need to be done before school starts.

The next few years in education are going to be very interesting. As of this writing, this particular year will be the first (since shutting down in March of 2020) that we attempt to start the year with in person learning. I say "to start" as infection rates and the Delta COVID 19 variant are raging as I type. Under "normal circumstances" I would not go in to set up my room before having to go back to school officially. I would be clinging to every single moment of my hard earned Summer break. My perspective on this has changed since March of 2020. I've used my blog to document the change in my mind set as well as what it has been like to teach during this ongoing pandemic.

I am certain that the coming school year bring with it many "opportunities." I ran towards many of these "opportunities" last school year and it nearly burned me out! That change in mind set I mentioned earlier and the close of the 2020-2021 school year caused me to do a bit of reflecting. During that reflective process I promised myself that in order for me to say "yes" to any of the multitude of "opportunities" that will be "presented" (yes I'm using a lot of air quotes here) to me as an educator, moving forward, I should vet "said opportunities" through a series of questions...

Will this opportunity help me become a better teacher?

Will this opportunity help me become a better “leader?”

Will my participation in this opportunity benefit the students in our school?

If the answer to one or more of the questions is "yes" then the opportunity is going to be worth contemplating. Faced with the "opportunity" of getting my room set up 2 weeks before it needed to be so that I can focus my energies on other things when we do go back, I decided to seize the day and go in and set it up.

The rest of this blog post is going to document what it was like getting the room set up. Starting with a few before screen shots...

This doesn't look too bad. However, what you don't see is that there are a lot of things that need to be moved. Among other things, there were grade level materials that I had in my room because I'm the grade level chairperson. That's what I started with. I had to move all of these materials off of the bookshelves and out of the way so I could get furniture where I wanted it before moving on to bigger things. Due to COVID-19 we still have to arrange desks so they are facing the same direction and they need to be 3 feet apart. This took a while to get the way I wanted but I think it came out very nice as you will see below.

I also had to vacuum 2 area rugs that I use to give the room a "chill vibe." Once the furniture was moved and the rugs where cleaned I could move on to the biggest task; putting the library together. This is always a massive undertaking and very tedious as I have 100's if not 1,000's of books. The books are all stored in bins based on reading level, on the opposite side of my classroom. If you look carefully, you can get a sense of that in the second “before” screen shot. I like putting the books in order from easiest to read to hardest (left to right on the bookshelves). Before I could get started on placing the books where I wanted them I had to clean up the bins and books due to the fact that neither had been touched since March of 2020. After cleaning the bins and books up I was then able to place them where I wanted on the shelves. All told, it took the better part of 3 hours just to move materials and furniture, vacuum my 2 rugs, clean then stage the bins with books on the bookshelves. I was exhausted at the end of this and took a very brief break.

After the break I started working on decorating the room. I have a really cool bulletin board I like putting up as a place holder for student work. Here's a screen shot of what that looks like in the back of my room...

After putting up a few more bulletin boards and posters I moved on to putting up another place holder bulletin board in the hallway. This bulletin board, like the one pictured above will be for student work throughout the school year. After putting that bulletin board up I cleaned every desk and chair along with all of the counter space in the back of the room. I wanted the room to be spotless when I left. I finished up by spraying Lysol on every surface I could find.

Here are some screen shots of the room as it was completed...

I'm really happy with the way the room looks right now. The first two “after” screen shots give you a sense of how many books I own. All four screen shots really show off how symmetrical I got the desk set up to look. Very traditional but that’s the way we have to do it now during the pandemic.

I did not cover every available space. I still have to decorate my door; that's a really big deal in elementary school education. I want to leave some of the wall spaces blank for the kids to help me fill. Having all of this finished weeks before it needs to feels good; a gift that "present me" is giving to "future me."