It's Beginning to Look Like a Classroom, Folks!

Well, Mom and I headed back to Warren this morning to tackle my overwhelming mess of a classroom.

Hello Warren. 

We unpacked, began putting things up, cleaned some walls, and got quite a bit accomplished before lunch. Here are the pre-lunch pictures. Sorry that they're kind of blurry, I took them all with my phone. 

 We re-arranged my desk area some from yesterday. I much prefer it this way.

 Mom put up my favorite book border under the board. Nicole used to have the same border in her classroom. 

 Mom braved the ladder and put up the giant "Dare to dream it. Work to achieve it." posters in the front of the room.

 She also put up the Language Arts posters on the cabinets. 

Time for LUNCH.

Mom went to meet a friend for lunch and I ran to Walmart to get a few more things for the room. I got back a bit before she did, finished unpacking all of the boxes, and arranged my desk. When she returned, we got right back to decorating. Here is all we accomplished after lunch.... 

 My desk area. It's quite different! 

 Family pics on the shelf, Europe collage on the fridge, lots of friends and family (and Brian Regan) on the board. Oh, my initials are also on there. :)

Close up  

 Here's the bookshelf to the right of my desk. I got those containers at Walmart during lunch. I don't have any drawers around my desk, so the containers work well to hold the "stuff" I might want near me.  

 Here is my desk. I love my desk calendar. 

 The bookcase in front of my desk. On the top are pictures of all of my little cousins and a picture of us with the dolphin this summer. To the left I will hopefully have an actual file cabinet to replace those plastic boxes. 

 Mom put up the encouraging posters above the windows.

 The picture above the board is of Edinburgh. It's AWESOME.

 This is perhaps my favorite corner of the room. Can you read any of them? :)

 Close up on the front of the room. Europe pics on the left, amazing map of the world in the bulletin board. 

 On the right hand side bulletin board we have some blown up pics from this summer. Durham top left. Paris bottom left. Prague top right. Budapest bottom right. And of course, we must keep calm and carry on. 

 Those things on the cabinets each have a picture of a child from a different country and how to say "hello" in their language. So cool!

 We (Mom) moved the wildcat above the door. On the door, I put adhesive dry erase circles. The top one says, "Welcome to Warren." The middle one says, "Read Read Read." The bottom one says, "Words of wisdom: Ms. Erickson is awesome." I have to start them on this line of thinking from the get go. :) 

Oh! This may tie for favorite part of my room--the painters tape that the kids cannot cross. Thanks Nicole for the great idea. Junior highers aren't too keen on the personal space thing--they need a physical reminder not to get all up in my grill. :)

Well, that's about all folks. My room is basically put together! I can't believe we did it in only a day and a half! I'll go back and work on a few last minute room things next week, and then I only have to figure out what to teach--easy (or not).