countdown: 4 days

Yikes, I've already gotten behind on my writing and school hasn't even started yet! Let me (briefly) catch up. After a long but helpful four days of teacher training last week, I spent the weekend a little excited, a little nervous, and a little overwhelmed. I vaccilate between these three emotions incredibly rapidly. After an end of summer vacation weekend in Boston, I got to my classroom Tuesday morning with the best intentions. 10 hours later I walked out the door. TEN HOURS. Needless to say, that was a pretty draining day. I am getting a lot accomplished, and with a little polishing, my room will be ready.

Yesterday, I received my class list so I started putting names on folders, name tags, check in magnets, etc. Who knew how time consuming THAT would be?! But things are coming together.
I also received my district laptop yesterday: an old-ish dell. If you know me personally, you know my dell history and hatred. I swear, if this dell gives me a quarter of the problems I had with my dell, I will have a breakdown (by this I mean I will probably throw the computer out my classroom window and watch it's microchips splatter across the parking lot). I swear I'm not a violent person...

I'm still pretty overwhelmed by trying to write up my schedule (and trying to fit the 120 minutes of literacy instruction that are recommended into a 90 minute literacy block...buh bye science and social studies...), and there are so many tiny details that I think of every single second. But the room itself is looking good-ish.

My reading rug (I wish my camera could get a 360 view!)

Reading corner

Main floor area

My (messy) desk area complete with the aforementioned laptop whose brand I will not respeak here....

My to-do list for today is insanely long, and so far none of my friends have sounded too thrilled about coming in to help...so I guess I better hit the road.

ps- you know you're already losing it when you have dreams about frantically searching for a t-shirt diecut punch