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  We took out 9 large trashbags and took 5 trips to the library with old, outdated textbooks.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.

Moving Pictures

Today was my official "last day" of work - just an inservice day where we get to check out, clean out our rooms and all that good stuff.  It's a quick and easy day, most of our staff can get in and out in a hour.

So, I finished moving over to my new computer room today.  All of my stuff is out on the shelves and needs to be sorted, organized, and put away.  This is the countertop towards the back of the room.  My mini fridge and microwave won't stay in that spot, they'll go back in my "workroom."

 This is the workroom - it's also the "woodshop" with a jigsaw cutter, hole poker (yeah, the technical term there) and a sander that you can't see.  My Assistant Principal thinks I'm nuts to keep the CO2 car program going with the woodcutting.  I think I'll keep it up until all the wood blocks have been used.  You can see that I have a lot of stuff that needs to be cleaned and put away.

Here are some shots of the computer lab....  And decorating ideas?

 I also took a look at the bulletin boards that surround the computers.  I like all the bulletin board space, but look at all those outlets = pain in the butt to work around.  I don't look forward to cutting the bulletin board paper to have to deal with those.  Our school colors are turquoise, black and silver, so I'm thinking about decorating all the boards with that coordinating color scheme.  And, see that lip in the upper left corner?  I'm thinking maybe covering all that in black?  Too dark?  The paint on the walls looks awful and I think I need to cover them.

Finally, this is my desk/teacher area.  I liked the L shape I made with my electronic cart and my small teacher's desk.  The previous teacher had his back to the class (doesn't make any sense, but to each his own) and I had to switch everything around.

I'll be back into work tomorrow to finish things... I hope?!  Anyone else still moving, sorting, etc?

Packing & Moving

Over the course of the 2011-2012 school year, I will have packed up and moved my classroom...

wait for it....

THREE TIMES!!

Yes.  I'm the packing and moving champion!  (Sadly, there's no award for this.  Maybe increased muscle tone from picking up boxes?)

As this year comes to an end (I only have NINE days left - thank god) I finally received my official assignment from our Administration.  I know I've mentioned this, but a few months ago, I offered to my principal to move from the 7th grade math/science position to the Computer Elective position.  The current elective teacher wanted to switch... and I decided to go for it!

Now, I know I'm moving AGAIN - gotta go to the Computer Elective classroom (which is a GIANT room with a woodshopish area in the back) with all of my things.  I've been busy sorting and deciding what materials I can "pass on" to the teacher moving in and what things will come with me.   Also, it's a key idea to start throwing a lot of stuff away because I really won't need extra math worksheet copies in the computer room.

Over the summer, I'll be busily revamping the current websites and pages for the technology class.  Plain black 12 times new roman font on a white screen does NOT do it for me!  All of these ideas (with pics) will be in more detail for the linky party over at Miss Kindergarten's site.

Also, it means I'll probably change the focus of the blog just a little to more of an educational technology point of view.  I'm still going to work on taking all my older materials and forms, sprucing them up and uploading them for everyone.

Ultimately - it's definitely more "Life in Middle School" because I'll be hitting ALL three grade levels and really seeing ALL types of learners from the Technology Elective.

Finally Treading Water...

Hello my Middle School friends!

I am about halfway moved into my new classroom at my new/old school. According to my school district, because I was a "voluntary" transfer I did not receive any prep days to move my classroom and to prepare for my new students. It's been a bit of a whirlwind since Monday 3:30pm, when I found out that I was moving into my new class on Wednesday.

In addition, I also switched content levels from 7th grade Language Arts/Social Studies to 7th grade Math/Science (and an EXTRA 8th grade Science thrown in! Eeeep!)

So... madness.

Luckily, my new students are VERY sweet and have been working nicely the past three days. (Except for my 8th graders, but they're another blog post.) That's a bit off my shoulders. When I get online access to their information, that will be another step in the right direction.

My new students have been telling me that they're very upset that all the other science classes have been able to do Lab Experiments and since they have had a sub, they've been left out. So I promised them that we would start some Lab Safety next week to prepare for lab experiments. I made these Lab Safety "Licenses" that I'll share with everyone.

Also, a shout out to Middle School Math Rules! and her great One-Step Equation idea. Her group lesson for solving Equations is in my plans for next week and I already kinda prepped them using colors in math today. I had my students take a colored pencil for their inequalities and start boxing all the key words (like, more than, less than, etc) in the problems to make their inequality words really POP! They seemed to enjoy doing something a little different.

Life Update - Part 2

So! I applied for the job that I mentioned in the last post... and I GOT IT!

Whoo-hoo!!!

I'm switching content from 7th grade LA/SS to 7th grade Math/Science, plus an extra 8th grade Science thrown in there!

When I'm finally settled, I'll go back to posting on a more regular basis. I have some good stuff to share when I'm back too. Hopefully, just in a few weeks.