Setting Up For Back To School

Well, it's here. The day I have been dreading eagerly anticipating all summer. Teachers start back tomorrow, doing four days of professional development and then Friday the students start back. I've been trying like a crazy woman to get my room ready and I had a couple of strikes against me from the start:

My room. It's small - like really small. So small I didn't know how I would fit all of my stuff in it. Then the district bought me more stuff. Which was good cause I needed it, but bad cause the room is small. It's also old. People, I'm a bit very shallow. I like shiny, new things. My room I just moved from was new - I was the first teacher in it, the kids and I kept it nice and even two years later it still looked new. It was large, it had tinted windows so I didn't need dusty, old blinds and we had great natural lighting. It had tons of storage. It was a dream room.

Well, the dream is over. I moved into an old, yucky, dirty room. A room with old, nasty metal blinds that can't go up and down any more. I'm the kind of person who is easily influenced by her surroundings. Put me in a nice room and I'm cheerful and raring to go. Put me in an old, yucky, dirty room and I get depressed. I asked for it to be painted over the summer and it wasn't. There was nasty contact paper on top of the shelves - and the edges were ragged and hanging down. I had nasty, ragged, hanging down contact paper edges people! I looked at that room and wanted to cry! How was I supposed to make this a fun, happy place for pre-k?!

Well, it took some doing, and I don't think Better Classrooms and Playgrounds is going to be putting me on their list of Top Ten Most Beautiful Classrooms, but it isn't an old, yucky, dirty room any more. This is because I had help:

 My daughter, Moira, stripped that nasty contact paper off, then my husband painted it for me - a nice, high gloss black that should clean well.

Sullivan unpacked and inspected all of my dinosaurs for me to ensure they all still remembered how to roar.

My district bought me a bunch of stuff from Lakeshore Learning - not everything that was on my dream list, but enough that it was like Christmas when I was opening all of those boxes!

Sullivan made sure each box was empty before we threw it away.

Moira and Steven even painted my bookcase to match my Space theme!

I have spent the last 4 days in my room - totaling at least 20 hours, cleaning, purging, organizing, dusting and reorganizing. I spent about an hour just unpacking my brand-new pre-k sized chairs:

 (yes, I did get Steven to come lower all of my tables lol)

I hung up my alphabet, numbers, shapes and colors from this pack today:

I'm waiting on a horseshoe table to be delivered, then I can finalize the locations of all my centers and put up my center signs:

I still have to cut out and laminate my clip chart:

I have to decide what to put in my Sand & Water table to start out the year.

I have to put my books onto the bookshelf once the paint is dry.

I have to put together some kind of Back to School packet for the parents and kiddos for Thursday night.

But, other than that, I'm ready for the school year to begin.

My room still isn't new, but it's clean now, and filled with a ton of fun stuff. Everything has it's place in the cabinets, and I learned that some of my stuff just isn't necessary. I'll share some more pictures later this week and I think you'll agree, my room is a cheerful, fun place for pre-k!