Back to School: The Middle Part 2

Well, the past week has been SUPER busy! I headed back to school yesterday (Wednesday) for the first of our 3 teacher days this week before school starts on Monday. I found out that we are having a parent meet and greet on Friday (tomorrow) morning at 9am and we are expected to have our rooms done! I knew it was mentioned that it was a possibility we'd do this at the end of last year but didn't know that it was actually confirmed! I feel like such a ditz! (FYI we have never had parents come in before school starts. They usually show up on the first day with all their kids things and then we have a parent teacher night in week 2 which is why it was such as surprise).

Anyway, I hadn't been too stressed about my room because I knew I still had this weekend to finish it off. (I know, I'm slack).  Sooooo.... it was like SHOCK. HORROR! Why did I procrastinate??!! So I had to stay late yesterday and today to have my room at least looking OK (i.e. no stacked boxes, everything spread over desks etc like it has been) before I get to meet my parents and kids bright and early tomorrow. In staying back late, I mean I stayed back 1 hour each day. I know, not much, nothing really. I feel bad. BUT I was REALLY tired after having to get up early and sit through endless meetings and PD from 8am to 4pm both days. So by 5 yesterday and today I called it quits. We had 30mins of 'teacher prep time' (i.e. room set up ) on Wednesday (which turned into 15mins by the time we were out of the last meeting) and 45mins today + working through lunch. So I haven't had time to do much yet.

 Here's a view from the door looking to the left. There's my CAFE board, lots of shelves and the start of my VOICES board. Along the top of the whiteboard is part of the word wall. Kids always love the mini couch and cushions for reading.

 Here's my group area. The tubs on top are for sorting books tomorrow morning - just have to add labels tonight. You can see my clear drawers have just been stuffed to try and hide 'stuff'. I might put labels down the front to hide it for tomorrow!

This is the view looking towards the front. My teacher desk is down there - that's another thing that has used up a lot of time. The teacher next door and I brought our teacher desks out of our shared office and put our 4 computers in there instead (totalling 8 computers) so we have a mini computer lab to share! So that meant a lot of last minute changes but it should work out wonderfully!

 This is at the doorway. I'll be filling the rack with books tomorrow morning. This will be used as a listening post area. The board will be for student work.

This is the front left of the room. My teacher desk is there with the laptop that connects to the interactive whiteboard. I have a small group area there too. On the little table is one of the $3 book racks I picked up recently at a garage sale. Under that is our reading buddies (stuffed animals).

Well, that's it for now! The holidays went super duper fast! Wish me luck for tomorrow! :D