Almost Ready for the First Day of School!

I am so excited to start my new position, in my new school district.  We have had such wonderful and inspiring PD this week.  Our open house was tonight and I met such wonderful students and parents.  For the first time in years I walked into a classroom that had been handed down to me and it was not full of clutter.  So often there is so much to sort through.  I think almost every teacher I know has a difficult time throwing things away, but when a school is moved into a brand new building and people are forced to get rid of anything they have not used in a year you get a clutter free classroom.  Despite my best attempts it was difficult to achieve this in my previous classrooms.  I would always sort through things, but it was hard to party with things.

I remember reading an article that stated there were groups of similar students who were taught by the same teacher, in one case they were in a classroom that had minimal decoration and only relevant information posted. In the other classroom the room was decorated to the T, with no bit of wall space uncovered.  The kids in the classroom that was streamlined and clutter free did the best.  They made more use of the posted information.  That same information was in the other room, but it was suspected students had a harder time determining what was important and being able to located the information the needed.  

So without further ado, here is my clutter free room....

Awesome right!  The board on the left is going to have great work posted on it, samples of their thinking and anchor charts.  to the right I split the board in 2, on the left will be math talk, and on the right information on our science unit.  I plan on putting our learning map on the back central white board, and there is a smart board and another white board up front.  The white board up front will have the lesson essential question and will be a work space for sharing ideas.  I am in love.  

Big Changes! School Starts Monday, New Students in a Week!

Last year my family moved.  It wasn't too terribly far, but far enough that my ten minute commute became a 45 or more minute commute.  Not the end of the world, but also not something I was enjoying.  Changes needed to be made.  I started looking in and around my new area and got a job offer for a job 20 minutes away.  Saving me 50-60 minutes a day (often times more because coming home always took longer).  Getting back about 5 hours with my family each week is huge to us.  This year I will be in a new school, in a new district, and a new grade.  I am going from pre-k to 5th grade math and science!  That exclamation point is excitement.

I will miss my little pre-k students, my hard working assistant, and the staff I loved.   But I am so excited to begin this new chapter in my life as a 5th grade intermediate school teacher.