Tales of a Classroom Move - Part 1

Three weeks ago, I was finally told by my Principal what classroom I would be moving to for next year.  We had a few options that I was mulling over and I especially wanted to go back to the room next to Ms. OCD.

Unfortunately, I was not going to be next to Ms. OCD, I'd be a little further away in a different quad.  The teacher had just recently vacated that room due to internal disputes and a sub was finishing out the year with his kids.  You can draw your own conclusions about this situation.  I'm sure you'll arrive at the correct one. ;)

So, that teacher bailed and I had this feeling that I was in for some trouble.  I moseyed over to the room on my lunch and peeked behind the cabinets.

OH BOY!  Miss Cleo has nothing on me because....  I CAN TELL THE FUTURE!  That room was a disaster.

There was literally stuff crammed into any open space.  The closet was filled to the top with garbage, like all of the cabinets.  I honestly wish I had the foresight to take some pictures because it was that horrid.

Some highlights?

• Grade reports.... from 2003!
• Textbooks... from the early 1990's!
• An emergency bin... from 2000!  That no one even knew about!  Good thing we haven't had a giant earthquake.  Or that the kids never found the rope and duct tape!
• Unopened Math Manipulatives from Lakeshore.  Good stuff too... no one knew about it.
• About 100 yearbooks from all over Southern California!

I had some students help me throughout the last weeks of school.  We took out 9 large trashbags and took 5 trips to the library with old, outdated textbooks.  

So, today I took some pictures.  I've made progress and I've finally been able to bring over MY things into the room.

Here's just a general view of my new home.

This is ONE cabinet after I had taken a lot of stuff out of it, but still not done.  None of this stuff is mine.

Another general view of the room.

This is just some of the junk left in the closet.  That shelving unit obviously had to go because you can see it's broken and leaning on the door jam to stay upright.

So, I move that shelf and THIS IS WHAT I FOUND!  GAG!  BARF!  I mean, seriously.  WTF.  Ms. OCD was hiding in the hallway at this nonsense because it was really disgusting.

Sorry.  I just had to had this.  Because this is what was going through my head.

I'm pretty sure that these are remnants of the bugs that died in that closet, circa 2006.

Another messy cabinet.  This one housed the math manipulatives.  Everything in these cabinets are covered with a thick layer of dust.

Seriously!  Junk is just overflowing out of this room.

So - enough complaining and here is a bit of my progress. I'm not even close to putting my own stuff away.

More to come tomorrow!  I will be spending another day in my classroom getting it ready for when I head back in July.