Thank goodness for awesome colleagues!

I was dreading going in and finding out what state my classroom was in due to everything needing to be moved and all of the stuff left by the former teacher. However, when I went in today, despite the stack of boxes of Reading Street materials, the shelves were bare! ALL of the stuff the former teacher left was gone (even the good stuff she promised me *sigh*).

Turns out, one of my colleagues, who is moving from 1st to 3rd grade, came in and took all of the stuff, sorted through it and got everything organized. I did ask her about some stuff the retiring teacher had specifically said she was leaving for ME (books on tape, etc) but I'm really pleased that I didn't have to go through all of that stuff! 

This is what I showed up too. All of those boxes are Reading Street materials!

Those shelves were STUFFED with things last spring so it was a relief to see them empty!

I started by putting the tables into groups of 6, although I might change it to groups of 4. I unpacked everything from my boxes and totes and spread them out on the desks as you can see. I HATED leaving this mess!

I moved my filing cabinet over and plan to use this back section as my reading group table. Those boxes are all Reading Street books! You can see notebooks and supply boxes in the foreground.

Those doors are the ultimate waste of space as they lead to the room next door and are NEVER used. So I am going to put my library area here next to the computers. 

I didn't take a picture of my whole group teaching area yet. I am not 100% sure that I like how I have this set up yet and I may actually end up moving it around. [I know, Debbie Diller says plan first THEN move but that's just not how I roll apparently!] I am very visual and seeing it set up is the only way I can really see if a space will work for me or not. The teacher who had my room last year had her reading table against that weird door but I don't want to be that close to the classroom entrance when I am working with groups. 

I wasn't planning to go in tomorrow because of a lunch date with a friend but it got cancelled so I might go in for a couple of hours and try to get as much stuff organized as possible. I have several things to bring to the classroom also. I am still planning a full day Wednesday so that I can get my whole room finished and then take Thursday and Friday off before staff officially reports back next Monday.