Clutter-Free Week 1

The first challenge for the Clutter-Free classroom was to take pictures of the clutter.
I do not normally invite people into my classroom. I'm paranoid they will judge (hate) my teaching style. And it's a messy room. I call it organized chaos but it isn't so organized. I hate having substitutes unless I know ahead of time and can neatly pile things. Despite all that, welcome to my first grade classroom, my home away from home:

Notice those big beautiful built-in closets? That was my organizational task this summer. The before picture on this one was bad. And I know I can purge more.

My library/whole group/calendar area:

There are currently some empty book crates on my book shelves. And a pile of books in the back corner of the room that I can't figure out just how to organize. I love books, they are hard to purge:

And I've got an amazing Math cart full of manipulatives that are fairly well organized in the drawers below but the top level seems to be a landing ground:

And I've saved the messiest for last. My teaching table, though this is the state of it at the end of the day:

This year to keep it simple and keep from creating piles I decided not to use a desk. I have it but it is the students' computer area. And because of that I end up with piles on my table!

So the questions to think about were: What were your thoughts when you took your before pictures? Was your "current state of affairs" better or worse than you thought. What are you most excited about tackling?

I was pretty much thinking I can't believe I'm taking these pictures to share with the world. But I also knew that by doing so I would be held accountable to clear the clutter. I'm excited to tackle the bookcase behind my teaching table because I've got many SPOTS: Something Pretty On the Shelf. You know those books you HAD to have, the helpful handouts from a workshop, the collection of whatever that you might use down the road.

Thanks for sticking with me through all this mess!!!