Progress

 I've never needed a ton of sleep, even through my pregnancy I could get by with about 5 hours a night. Lately, I'm averaging about 3 hours per night. Seriously, I don't know how I am functioning at all. But, here I am...10PM just finished cleaning bottles, working on math assessments and rubrics, oh, and the all too important blogging :0)

I had some focus today. I unpacked, unpacked, and unpacked all my math and literacy centers, hung up my long weird bulletin board in the hall, labeled cubbies, typed out and printed my welcome letters, organized 3 big ole boxes of books into Fountas and Pinnell levels, and walked to the office a zillion times looking for supplies that once I got there (after seeing and talking to people in the hall) had forgotten what I needed, over and over and over. All in all a pretty good day.

Here are some pics...

The famous Pinterest inspired crate chairs, which will more than
likely get me into hot water with Scary Maintenance Guy...
"Are these flammable?"

My fire chairs filled with highly flammable leveled readers.
Took FOREVER to organize by level, but I felt soooo good afterward!

I've had some questions about how I organize my library for my classroom. When I got into my room, there was no rhyme or reason to the organization of the books, so the first thing I did was take an inventory, then I wanted to determine what the purpose was...did I want them all organized by level or theme. I chose theme. These are books that students have access to everyday. I wanted them to find the books/characters they love, quickly.

The next thing I did was create book bin labels with matching labels. Each book has a label that is displayed on the front cover. This allows students to just match the pictures. My bins are EL Cheapo! I bought ice cube bins from walmart. They work perfectly for my ick shelving. The bins that have LOTS of books are rhyming-repition-song/fiction animals/non fiction animals, and insects and spiders. These books are in dishwashing tubs again from the store that I loathe....Walmart.

The next picture is mainly literacy centers. These are the first centers that I teach. They are my "staples." They include Read the Room, font sort, magnetic word building, stamp the alphabet, do a dot letters, chalkboards....there are TONS of them. I teach them throughout September. Then when we start doing Stations, students work on more thematic centers, if and when they finish, each group has a choice of 4 staple centers to work on. This prevents I'm done, I'm done, I'm done.

These are math centers.

Every bin has a picture on it. There is also a picture on the shelf where the bin goes. I just got tired of my kiddos putting things away wherever they could find space. It made me crazy!

Alright, I am officially tired. Here's hoping I catch some Zzzzz's tonight! I haven't decided if I am going in tomorrow or not, guess you'll have to check back tomorrow. Thanks for reading!

Shannon