Bethany's First Classroom Reveal!

T'was the night before kindergarten, when all the through the house, a teacher was stirring, and so were the mice in her house. (Check out I Don't Think I Was Meant To Grow Up for that lovely story...)

We're cutting it a little close here at Bellshire Elementary. Our school had some beautiful and much-needed renovations completed over the summer, but that left us teachers with only one week to prep in our rooms, and the custodians were left to work around us while waxing the floors.

I walked in to chaos.

It was the first time I'd ever seen my room, and random furniture was thrown into each of them. I had no guided reading tables, one teacher desk that was falling apart, two sets of classroom chairs (neither the correct size for kindergarteners) and about forty-five more tables than I needed. There was some second grade curriculum in there, too: globes, workbooks much too hard for my kinders, etc...

But the whole team pulled together. We swapped until we all ended up with the correct curriculum. We stole furniture from everyone else's surplus pile. Teachers would roam the hallways yelling, "File cabinet?!" until someone would poke their head out and say "Come on in! I have four!"

Until finally, somehow, we were ready. (Or as ready as we'll ever be.)

So without further adieu... Welcome to Harper Headquarters! This is where Nashville's kindergarten detectives will become confident, creative, and curious...ready to make observations, search for clues and strategies, and ultimately learn new things until their case is cracked...and they are ready for first grade!

Special thanks to my kinder team for guiding me and swapping materials / furniture with me when everything was randomly piled in our room! Thanks to the janitors who helped us with our setups prior to waxing our floors, thanks to the tech team for installing everything in a matter of three days, and thanks to everyone who sent graduation money or school supplies / classroom essentials directly. And huge thanks to Dylan Roth for coming up basically every day to move and assemble furniture, hang everything out of my reach (i.e. ... nearly half my classroom), and for keeping me mentally sane through this crazy week! 

The first day of school is tomorrow... Kinder teachers, it's time to get our cray on!