Here are the after pictures.  I didn’t get much done, but I did get rid of some furniture and move some things around.  Mostly, I would move a piece of furniture and then sit down and contemplate where the next piece would get moved…

This is my science area.  I put my sand table back here after talking to a K friend down the hall.  I can use the table top for some science things and then open it up when we are ready. 🙂  You can also see my green house that I bought at the end of last year and my compost bin under my sand table.  Our meal worms are on top of the sand table.

This is my front board.  The orange sign in the middle indicates where my Promethean Board goes (it was installed today yeah!!!)

This is my bench where I read books to my kiddos. 🙂  You can see my easel to the right and I put wire shelves to the left this year instead of a book case.  I got some more storage this way compared to my old two shelf book case.  I think I can put a workstation in the cube that did not get filled up.

This is my new library work station area and computer area.  My library work station used to be back where you can see part of the round table and the bookcase with the red curtain.  I moved my library work station up near my front board and will use these two bookcases.  I did this for two reasons 1) I wanted to be able to have the books that were on our topic close by when we do read alouds and 2) I couldn’t see my kids over the top of my taller bookcases and we had a close call last year where some one almost tipped the bookcase over on them, so I wanted to do away with that.

I will be moving the front facing bookcase perpendicular to the computer desks.  I bought a Closet Maid organizer at Target last week:

It will lay on it’s side and hold books in each of the 8 cubbies.  I will put it under the front ledge of my dry erase board.  I will also leave the pillows close by it (and my rug will be far enough away from it).  and let me kids read in that area.

This is the area that was my Library work station.  It will now be a small group area, and be used for either big book work station or writing work station…I haven’t decided yet.  I turned all the computers to face it so that when my assistant (LOVE her!!) is working with a small group on a computer program, we won’t disturb them and my kids won’t be watching the computer screens instead of me or their task. 🙂

This is a look at my six tables.  Some are way in the back of the picture. 🙂 Last year, one of them was the round one in the picture above and I opted to take back my writing work station table and use that as a student table.  I would like to use my tables more and have them pull double duty (they can be both individual work areas and work station areas).  Also, the round table was always just a little too much in the way.

I’ve also given some thought to the shelves I have at the end of my tables this year.  I will keep them, but when having 5 kids sit at some tables, it is hard to fit 5 binders in them.  I requested plastic folders this year on my supply list (the kind with three prongs).  I will put my binder sheets (the ones available on Teachers’ Pay Teachers–see the button on the top left) in sheet protectors and then put them in the folders instead of the binders this year.

Also, we had magazine holders that held our SSR books and those created a hot mess when only 4 would fit comfortably on a shelf.  I was always tripping on a box somewhere.  So I’m working on some solutions in my mind, but haven’t settled on anything yet.  It will come to me…just need to think it over. 🙂

I’ll be at school after I’m done helping to train teachers the next couple of days and will get some more pictures as I move things around.  Tomorrow, my hubby is coming with me to put the bookcase together for me, and I’ll get pictures of the Promethean Board. 🙂

I’ll work on a map of my classroom here in a minute and post that. 🙂

Kristen 🙂