My Classroom Still Needs a Lot of Work!

Less than one week until the students will be back in class and my classroom is so far from ready its crazy!  Back in June we were told that we had to move everything off of side shelves as we would be getting air conditioning this summer.  So I piled things up wherever they could go and left the school knowing that we would not be allowed back in until shortly before school started. 

I'm sure anyone who teaches knows how summer construction goes.  I'm confident that they started nothing until about a week ago and now they are saying not only will they not get it done this year but the part of it they will get done they have to do while we have students in the classroom.

What this means for me is that my classroom consists of a bunch of piles of things that should be on shelves and that I'm not allowed to use those shelves before the start of the year.  Its completely frustrating.

But that is not what this post is about.  This is post was meant to just be a place to post some "before" pictures of my classroom.  I'm thinking the after will not come until sometime in September as I will want to get the construction people out and the classroom organized before I post them.

The classroom itself used to be two seperate classrooms and then it was redesigned to house us.  We have a kitchen, a small Snoezelen space, a door that leads to a cement patio, a therapy area, a swing and an change/bathroom area in the back of the classroom.  We also have great natural lght in the room. 

This is what the classroom looks like when you first walk in the door. 

I'm standing in the corner by the kitchen here.  This is the view of the length of the classroom looking towards the change/bathroom area in the back. The door that you can see on the left is the door in to our Snoezelen space.

 

 

The cute kid on the swing is my son Mikey.  You can see the fold down PT table behind the equipment in the back of this picture.  The purple bulletin board is the one that I use for morning meeting information.  We take the swing down, move the table out a bit and we can all gather around in this area for meeting.

This is a view into our vey not ready Snoezelen space.  Everything was taken down for cleaning at the end of last year and I have not been able to put anything together in there yet.  This room gets used for a variety of purposes as we also use it for a quiet work space for those students who need it.

 

 

Here are a couple of pictures of our change room/bathrooming area.  We have tracking above the change table (you can't see it) and then use a Hoyer lift everywhere else in the classroom.  I have been told that they will be extending the tracking from this area out to the PT table and swing area in the next year or so.  I would love to have tracking throughout but I know that my best way of getting it is asking for a piece of it every few years.  Oh yeah... we have some great storage in this area :).

 

 

 

 

And here is one last picture from another angle.  You can see the corner where my desk is tucked in and the door leading to the hallway is to the right of that.  The yellow bulletin board and the white board beside it are used for staff reminders and information.

 

 

Comments

[Alicia]

Can I say--JEALOUS!! I love your space and look forward to seeing your "after" pictures. :-)

[Lisa]

Me too, I am seriously jealous. I may have to ask for a lift this year. Even though we are still in elementary school, some of the kids are getting really heavy. We have a comparatively large room (for the county) but it is nowhere as large as yours is. And no kitchen!! Unfortunately, our special ed classes often get moved from one new school to another. I feel fortunate to be in the same school for the 3rd year.

[Monica]

Thanks ladies :). I feel very blessed to have the room and resources that we have and to know that we get to stay put from year to year. The one thing I would really like to have though is a Smart Board.

[Rachel]

I really like the ball pit in the middle of the classroom! Nice touch.

[Carolin Newmeyer]

You really got a nice classroom right there. I think renovations and remodeling won't be a problem for you since the walls and flooring are looking good. Maybe you should try to put some shelves to organize things. It would be great if you'll post some photos after you finished putting things together. Good luck!