Sorting Through the Rubble

Today was as good a day as any to organize my classroom. My wife was in literacy trainings, and the clouds looked (although weren't) threatening. I want to dig into curriculum work, but really want to get through some clutter first. The goal was to take my classroom from assortment of miscellaneous furniture to being an organized assortment of miscellaneous furniture that looks like a classroom. I think I accomplished that goal.

Above are two images of what my classroom looked like post-school year, and post-cleaning. There are a few issues I wanted to resolve. The first I resolved a few weeks before, and can be seen in the first image: put the computers against the wall. When the tables are perpindicular to the wall they jut out, and allow for kids to play with the cords. Who doesn't like to pull out a mouse cord, or unplug a monitor?! The second thing I needed to do was create a space for my student "mailboxes." Perhaps that deserves a second post entirely, but I really struggled with take home mail routines. Kids get returned work or some announcements (usually the latter is once a week) put in their mailboxes, but rarely take them home. My thought was that it was due to the clunky tall blue mailboxes (kinda blurry in the picture on the left) that were positioned away from the door. I needed to rectify that situation!

Above are three shots, from left to right of my classroom (while standing on my desk!). You can see a few things: first is that I created a space by the door for my student take home mail. It is on a rectangular table that used to have two computers on it. In a game called "Musical Table Swap" I took the table in the first image up top (with nothing on it) and put two computers on it, thereby allowing me to move that to the door, and the table by the door to the center table group. I am not sure I'll keep that table there, but I might. I also was able to create space for an extra bookshelf (the far right side of the last picture) by moving it right by the door.

My three big organizational think-abouts for the next few days are: 1) How do I want to execute my student returned work, and mail process? 2) How do I want to use my wallspace effectively this year? and 3) Where can I create more space for new books in my classroom?