the art closets which were once a thorn in my flesh

I have spent several hours the last two days working in my classroom. I have a whole wall of cabinets that (quite honestly) were an embarrassingly big huge mess all year last year. I got hired with 4 days left in the work week and then was at the beach at a family campout Labor Day weekend, so I never even cracked the cupboards to see what was lurking behind until a good month into the school year. (OK, maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration on my part.) I survived one year with the mess but I was determined it was to only be one year. Yesterday I worked on one cupboard organizing class sets of picture books. Today was the art supplies. It was really scary just to even open the door because you never knew what was going to come crashing down on your head. And it did, on more than one occasion. So after a trip to the Dollar Tree, spending $24 in organizing bins and baskets (and no, I didn't use all of them just for this), and grabbing a box of Sugar Babies for moral support, I give you the art cupboards before. . .

and after. . .

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I've been wanting to do this for so long! I don't even have the bins labeled, but it's almost as good as a Calgon "take me away" bath, don't ya think? Please note the paint bottles are in ROYGBIV order (as is the construction paper on the opposite side of the room. I have anal tendencies :) And please disregard the mess on top of the cubbies. This is a work in progress, remember. Now you may be wondering what the big bag is on the top shelf in the far right cupboard. . .it's charcoal and I have no idea why somebody would need charcoal at school. I also found a book of matches near it. Was the former teacher some kind of pyromaniac???

Still to come - the math cupboard (which may need to increase in size because there's so much stuff) and a cupboard full of 20 year old teacher made math games. You should see the boxes these things are in. I'm going to try to salvage what I can and get rid of all the ugly boxes. I'm over halfway done and I'm definitely seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Found out yesterday that I have 20 kids registered so far. At the end of May there were 23. And since numbers are down overall, I will also not be getting the shared aide one day a week. Bummer.

I'll post more pictures of my classroom for all you teachers/former teachers/homeschooling moms/and people who could kick themselves because they didn't go into education way back when/and dad, because he's my most faithful blog reader, as I get the room ready.