August Already? My Currently

Hello all! Where has the summer gone? I'm headed back to work tomorrow! I think I'm in denial. So I'm distracting myself by linking up with Oh Boy 4th Grade for her August Currently!

Most of this is pretty self-explanatory...I am soaking up my last real day of laziness with my little sister. Slept in, watched TV, went to the pool, read a book. But of course in the back of my mind are all the things I still want/need to do for school. Physically, my room is ready. We went up yesterday and finished hot-gluing numbers and and decorating. But now I feel like I have a million little things to do. Which is okay. I have time. 6 days of professional development before open house. That kind of time. So what am I wanting to accomplish before then? 

First up is my reading area. I've moved it separate from my library this year. Last year my students were a little too distracted by choosing and looking at books to actually do any reading. So I'm going to try separating that some this year. In this picture you can see my cute rug ($10 thrift store find) and reading pillows I made. I love the way this looks. I'm also going to use this space for our meeting area and read-alouds. Last year, I didn't design my room with this area in mind, and we were meeting at the back of the room because it was the only space big enough. It wasn't very intentional at all. And I think my kids picked up on this. So this year we are going to meet here! But check out my teacher chair...yuck! I inherited it with my room last year. It's good for some things...but not meeting time. So it's going out. I'm not sure where yet, but it is. Instead, I bought a little black stool from Ikea ($4.99 what what) that I'm going to use. So I have to put that together. Or convince Husband to.

But can you see my desk in the background? All the wires and cords and junk? That's my next project. Since my desk is actually just a table (legit, right?) I want to make a little curtain to go around the edge of my desk and hide some of that clutter. I think it will help separate my desk area from the reading area as well. So I bought some lime green fabric yesterday (one of my other colors), some ribbon, and some liquid stitch. I don't really have a plan for how this is going to work. I don't sew. So fingers crossed it works out well ;)

Next, I need to put the finishing touches on my Writing Process Chart. I had to pick up some more clothespins, and then I am going to number them so they're ready for the kiddos. I love the way it looks all hung up! I just used a little ribbon and some hot glue to put it together. Don't forget it's a freebie in my store if you think you could use it!

We don't get our class rosters until usually the day before Open House. So I also have a million and one things I want to do when I find out my kids' names. My Birthday Wall, for example, is blank. I also want to print out the labels for each of their notebooks like this...

But of course, I need names! So that's going to wait. If  you follow me on Instagram, you saw that last night I was working on a little Time Capsule Project for my kiddos during the first week. I usually do some version of this with my kids, but it's pretty casual and thrown together on the spot. But this year I've made a cute little book for them to fill out and decorate, then "open up" at the end of the year to see how they've changed. I am working on putting it up in my store as well.

On top of that are all the usual back to school things...organizing supplies, take home folders, seating charts, etc. And of course, I need to print and prep my Back to School Survival Guide for the first day! Can't wait to use this as an interactive way to go over rules and procedures. And finally (yeah right), I also have plans to make these cute little gifts for my kiddos at open house that I found on Pinterest...

 

Of course, without the zebra. But I love this idea! So yes, that is the cherry on top of all the things I have going on right now! What are you working on? And don't forget to link up your Currently if you haven't already :)