Fun in First!

I am having so much fun teaching First Grade! I teach at a small, private school in South Carolina. Check out these pictures from my First Grade classroom. Keep in mind, we may have lots of fun but my classroom is a work in progress. So, here's the story for 2013-2014:

The previous first grade teacher decided to retire at the last minute and after teaching for about 30 years, she walked away and left everything. And as you can see, she really did leave everything! I spent days, hours, weeks, cleaning out all of the stuff that she had left behind. I had never seen so much stuff in my whole life!

One of the cool things about my room is that it used to be part of the original library when it the school was first built. However, now we have a beautiful new library and I am left with these ugly built ins to make the most of. I know what you all are thinking - so much storage! There is such thing as too much storage and not enough wall space!

Now the semi-after:

  

The previous teacher had kidney tables ordered for the kids work area. While I like kidney table for guided reading groups, I have a small classroom and feel that 5 kidney tables in a small classroom just doesn't really work. I'm still hoping I will be able to change them out for desks. I'm also always polling and taking suggestions for how to best utilize my space and rearrange to best suit the needs of my kids. If you have any suggestions give me a holla!