Monday Made it - Through the classroom!

I've been busy!  My brain, like most teachers, has been on overload.  I've been very busy getting my classroom put back together and redoing a lot of things.  Last year, I didn't get the chance because I was on maternity leave for part of the summer and beginning 4 weeks of school, so my classroom atmosphere wasn't exactly how I envisioned it to be.

I'm planning a post when I get my entire classroom set up because I've been very intentional about how and where I've set things up this year.  But here are some of the big projects I've finished so I can link up to this week's Monday Made it!  BTW, aren't there some awesome ideas on that linky?

These are the "before" pictures.  A lot of my furniture is in place but am working on finalizing the final product.  I'm not exactly sure of how many students I'll have, but I have planned for 21 based on first grades' rolls from last school year.

If you notice in my first picture, my bookcase is very sloppy and unorganized.  I've had fabric in front of my bookcase for years, hiding a cluster of mess.  Pretty much anything I didn't have a place for was hidden on that shelf.  What a waste of space!  I'd been researching on pinterest (because pinterest IS an official research tool, right? ;)  how to organize and I've seen pictures of painted bookshelves, cardboard cut outs covered with fabric or wrapping paper, etc.  Well, on a whim, I decided to move the fabric from the front to the back.  I can thank PowerPoint for that!  And the end result you see in the photos!  Much more streamlined and organized.  Instead of a cluster on my shelves, I took and got rid of a rolling bookcase and took the baskets off and neatly put them on my bookcase.  The top shelf is missing, so I have a huge space, so my plan is to display books that are current to the season or topic we are learning.  I'm very pleased with how it turned out and all it cost me were a few borrowed glue sticks and burnt fingers...

Yeah, I'm sticking with lo-temp hot glue guns from now on.... Ouch!!!

My next project...

About 7 years ago, I finally figured out that I could make changes in my classroom without the police coming for me.  I had these very *ahem* ugly numbered books over my cubbies and coat hooks.  Not cute at all.. they probably were at first, but no longer in their prime.  So, I put these really cute number stickers I'd seen over top.  Problem was they only went to the number 20 and I had 24 hooks.  Well, 7 years later I finally fixed my problem.  I had a pack of half sheet labels and in Word, I made a table that would fit and printed up some new, clean, ALL MATCHING numbers for my cubbies and coat hooks.  My OCD is now relieved and I can relax.  They look beautiful.  Zen....

My next project was re-vamping my teacher toolbox.  I was so excited to make it and have it sit for 3 years in my classroom.  Yup... I used it like 4 times.  My labels, while cute, were very hard to read and a lot of the labels were things that wouldn't fit or weren't practical to store in the drawers.  Pencils... how many pencils fit in that drawer??  None.  So, I decided to redo my labels so they were more practical for me and easier to read.  Voila!  I'm very pleased with the results and yes, that drawer does say K-Cups...  I used the template provided by the wonderful Fun in Room 4B.  

These are just a few of the projects going on in my classroom.  I hope you can use some of these ideas or get a few new ones from this week's Monday Made it!