The Room is Ready! The Meek Moose Dresses the Nest

It's time to make the target face- my room is D.O.N.E. Basically.  I have to put some bandaids out in a cup, but that's nothing.  If you've been following me on my facebook page, then you've been catching the videos of my progress.  Why is it important to follow the facebook page anyway?  Because if you're not- then you're missing stuff like this:

This is what happens when your sister is a costume designer and she needs a cheap model.  I rock that dragon head like nobody's business!  What do you think, kittens?  Future match.com profile pic?  I'm sure to attract the *right* sort of man this way.  Everyone knows rich organic strawberry farmers play Dungeons and Dragons in their basements, right?  Sheesh. #single4evah #imokwithit #mostly (and YES, I did play Dungeons and Dragons once upon a time ago in college- I strike you with my +5 hand of righteous indignation.  I'm all grown up now and stick to the Webkinz, alrighty?)

Anyhow- if you missed the videos you can check them out again on my Youtube channel.  Plus some chicken footage, by the way.  I know that's a huge draw for everybody.

Now- without further ado- the reveal! Um yeah- it's 12 minutes.  Go get some popcorn.

I'm pretty thrilled.  I got rid of a lot of furniture and it has opened the room up.  I'm excited about my engineering area and hope this becomes a dynamic space for my kids this year.  In love with my dining room area, though I believe I will be wanting to get a table cloth for that one table that has my core book sets under it.

I was successful in getting rid of many items that were cluttering up my space.  I went in with the decision that it it had no where to live then it couldn't stay- and I made this apply also to an area of my supply closet that I used to stack boxes up in.  I have to say, I feel really proud of myself.  I have two whole empty cabinets right now as well.  That has never happened in twelve years of teaching.  An empty cabinet! Holy cow.

Why did I choose the colors I chose? Why do I even want the plants and the natural materials anyway?  It's because of a course I've taken with Sally Haughey of FairyDust Teaching.  She offers a course Learning Spaces and it's amazing.  People comment on how peaceful my room is all the time.  I even got an exceeds expectations in room environment last year- and I really owe it to Sally for that.

In another course I took with Sally a year ago about finding my teaching mojo- I discovered that I was more of a Naturalistic learner than I had even considered- so I began to but the elements of nature into my room and it has made it a much happier place.  I bring in class pets- our two betta fish will be our water element in the room this year.  Last year I had the wild turtle, and after we released her in the spring, I  found that I missed her.  A lot.  But I'm not ready for a 100 year commitment yet, and I don't believe I'll pick up another wild turtle.

I also keep two mice. Frisby and Ages.  My students generally don't have the experience of keeping pets in the home- and I don't want them to miss out on these experiences so many of us take for granted.  Caring for pets helped us develop empathy in our younger years.  And I will- OF COURSE- hatch chickens again in the spring.  Hopefully I'll be able to do caterpillars again as well.

My color scheme is based on ground, grass, sky.  I use it for EVERYTHING.  A few years ago I had found an alphabet frieze based on sky grass ground and loved it.  But I have since learned that the site offering the frieze has affiliations with child pornography, so I don't want to use it anymore (obviously).  So I made my own:

click to see it in the TpT store

I also decided to redo my IBPYP learner profile posters.  I transferred the English and the Spanish that my counselor had made onto posters with my school kids clip art.  Our counselor had done an awesome job with the posters- but I wanted something that was more consolidated and more in tune with my decor.  I'm going to make them into a book for the kids to have in our library as well.

click to see it in the store

By far- the most favorite area of my room is my dining room. The armoire now does double duty for storage and chart space. I got rid of the traditional guided reading table and traded it out.  I wanted to make sure my kids enjoyed the experience of sitting down to the table to get their work done.  Not everyone has that luxury in life.  I am looking forward to sharing with you the magic of this space this year.

I hope you enjoyed the video- good luck to everyone on Tuesday!