School Is Near

I go back to school officially next Thursday! Where has summer gone?? I am happy to say that I will be teaching 1st grade in a new school district this year! I'm a little nervous because of my experience from last year, but I have decided that I'm not going to dwell on last year. This is a new slate, a new district, new friends, new everything. I'm going to be a Positive Polly. I have been diligently working in my classroom for the past few weeks, but I still feel that I have SO much to do before August 7th when the kiddos come back. My classroom hasn't been used as an actual classroom for a few years, so when I first saw it it looked like this:

I can't even begin to tell you what kind of things where in those cubbies.

Needless to say I was quite overwhelmed. I immediately got to work and tackled the clutter. I have since turned it into this:

My cute little writing center table. It had outdated contact paper on it and it just looked gross. So I went to my friend TJ MAXX, and found this super cute Laura Ashley contact paper.

My computer center with my math shelf. (I like things organized by subject. It makes me feel better.)

 The front of the classroom, minus the touch point numbers below.

 My touch point numbers! I used my handy dandy Cricut to make these. (Seriously, if you're a teacher, and you don't have one of these babies, it's worth the investment! I got mine at Dirt Cheap for a hundred bucks!!) They actually have a Christmas in July Special deal right now. You can get a Cricut Expression with a Quilted Christmas Cartridge for $169. Check it out here. I didn't get a chance to use touch point math when I was teaching 4th grade, so I'm excited to be able to use these.


The Desk Fairy will be visiting my classroom this year. Thanks to Sarah Cooley's super cute desk fairy template, the Desk Fairy will be ready to hand out those awards. Check out the rest of Sarah's blog First Grader.....At Last for some really great ideas!



Well, the boyfriend will be back from his internship at ESPN August 13th!!!!!! (Can you tell how excited I am?!?!) I went to visit him earlier this month, and so this post isn't any longer, that will be a separate post later today.