Wednesday, April 24, 2013

My Second Home


Latoya's Let's Get Acquainted Linky topic for this week is My Classroom.

My classroom has become my second home. Most days, I spend more awake time there than at my own home. This is why it is so important to have a space I enjoy. It has taken me years to get my room "just right". I even switched rooms to get help get the room right. In the spring when the pine pollen rains in my window, I have to remind myself (through all the sneezes) that I wanted this room because of the pine tree and the courtyard. It is one of my favorite spots "in my room". I use the courtyard as an extension of my room. When the weather is warm the kids can sit in the courtyard to do math or read a book. A few or many can sit in the courtyard. They can sit on the lower branches of the tree. They know the rules and follow them, or they cannot go to the courtyard again.


Another favorite area is my display wall. Hubby rescued the plexiglass frames from his factory before they closed the doors to move to a right to work state, and two foreign countries.

I will have to figure out how to come up with a few more when my numbers climb to 26 or 28 next year from my 21 students this year. What I like is the display changes easily, and it looks nice even when work isn't on display.

The third area I love is my library. I have invested way too much money and time organizing it. I finally have what works well for me. I use a variety of ways to organize my 2000+ books. Some are by author, some by series, some are by genre. I separate fiction and non-fiction, and even have picture books and easy readers we use with our reading buddies. I am going to tweak a few crates and work on some new tags for my crates this summer. There are five other sections of the library not shown in these pictures. I have to be creative on organization, because with so many books, the storage becomes an issue. All books are available for student use throughout the year.


What is your favorite part of your classroom? Grab a camera, photograph it, and link up!


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