It has been a very busy last three weeks. This is the second week of school. The first photos are what the classroom looked like the second week in August, after a summer of having day camp and random stuff getting torn down and rearranged.
In this photo, I had the bulletin boards hung up, but the evil art cabinet of doom was outside being painted.
Speaking of the evil art cabinet of doom.....
The story behind this will be funny someday. Inexperienced furniture painter/teacher says to boss: you know, I'd like to repaint the wooden cubbies. Boss says, that's a good idea, but what about that big ugly gray metal art cabinet? At least the cubbies have color, albeit chipped and hideously ugly (My adjectives, mind you.) So I say, "great idea! How do you paint metal?" She gets a can of spray paint, some drop cloth and a paper mask and sets me up in the classroom to spray paint the cabinet blue. I've never spray painted anything before. Every four minutes, I had to run out of the classroom to breathe. Finally A., the bookkeeper says, you know it's kind of a bad idea to have Ms. W in the classroom doing this. I completely agreed.
We had stronger people drag the cabinet out to the playground to paint over a tortuous course of three days.
The second day, we discovered that the carpet that was not covered with the dropcloth was a different shade of blue. A saved the day again by finding a nice rug at K-Mart. Not only does it cover the painted carpet (mostly) but it fits all the kiddos for circle time.
I couldn't help but "tag" the cabinet, being as it was the first thing I'd ever spray painted before. After that horrible traumatizing experience, it may well be one of the last, and definitely the last metal thing I will ever paint.
This is what one part of the room looked like before anything got started. It took about 50 hours to get the room to the after!
After photos:
The writing center, puppet center, and library (which is no longer stuffed with overflowing, smushed, crammed, and backwards books. I figured out how to arrange the books the way a true Kindergarten should have them. In tubs. Still, today, I had to do a lesson on how to put the books away after quiet time.
No more huge honkin teacher's desk! There is so much more room in the classroom now. The computer center is essentially my desk. All the supplies are in the white cabinet.
I love this room now! Basically, this is my very first classroom ever that is all my own. Last year, I student taught and then took over this K class for Mrs. A who retired. I love the watery bulletin board with the space border. And as you can see, the art cabinet of Doom turned out a nice shiny dark blue in the end. I also added a rack behind the door to hang smocks on, some grown up chairs (wah hah! A comfortable place to park my butt during circle time or small group lessons.)
I'm tired and I'm going to bed.
This journal page was started on Halloween, but I added to it for three more days (note the Nov. 3rd date, I don't think you can see the 10-31-09 date at the top of the left page.)
I ordered the wings from ebay, and then bought some fake fall flowers and fall leaf garlands and made myself a crown and wrapped the rest of the leaf garlands around my clothes. I wore a brown shirt and skirt that I already own.
