It Looks Like The Closets Exploded...

I can't believe it's already time for school to start. This week! I can't help but feel excited at the same time though. After all...this is my third year. I've got it down, right? Well, more than my first year, anyway! This year is different though...I will be in a brand new place with lots of new faces and a new classroom, and...well lots of..."new" all around me.

Speaking of the new classroom...

Some of you might remember that I shared at the end of last year about my school being closed. I was so blessed though, because the district provided jobs for all of us from the school, and to make a long story short, after lots of waiting, praying, being placed once (in a crazy situation that I was less than prepared for!), God showed me his goodness once again, and provided a K-6 music position for me in a new building in my same district instead. So here are all my boxes lined up ready to be unpacked! But not 'til AFTER I make room and go through all the closets to "organize" and make space for the stuff from my school! 

My new classroom is huge with lots of storage space...

Unfortunately, it just hasn't been gone through or "organized" and "cleaned out" in 5-10 years. And that is no exaggeration! It's not just that I'm a person who has to be super organized (which I am!), but 5-10 years is a LONG time! So...I took EVERYthing out of the closets...including scary construction paper backgrounds, wigs, and half-costumes from the 90s (complete with an eight-legged welcome committee member or two in each closet, if you get what I mean...aaaahhh - spiders!! YUCK!), got rid of what I will never need/use...and started organizing!! 

This is the "music closet" with old books, magazines, paper copies, and many other piles of...ummm....treasure? (Including music curriculum from the 60s-70s and records to go with the books!) I just CAN'T throw the stuff away, even though everyone told me to...so I think I will donate the old books to our local library for their used book sale in the fall. This way I can clear out the space, but not waste all those fun old things!

Next came the instrument closet...

It doesn't look SO bad, but if you were there, looking closely, (and trying to breathe!) you would see/feel all the inches of dust on the shelves and the random piles of instruments everywhere that haven't been used in awhile. (So sad to me! I'm a hands-on, use them all the time kind of teacher!)  But I pulled all that out too, and organized them into containers by kind...

And life started to feel a LOT better! haha Hey - if you look to the left, you can almost see the new drums I just got through a grant from AOSA this Spring! I'm SO excited to get started using them and using rhythm as a core part of music AND interdisciplinary lessons! Yay!

Did I mention that I get my own little office in the new room too? It used to be a choir/band room when the building was a middle school several years ago (which also adds to the interesting collection of "stuff" accumulated in the room over the years...)

But I had to take everything out of the drawers/desk/filing cabinets in the office too...and make it mine! This picture is looking a little toooooo crazy for me! 

Here's some progress after the first two days of work last week! The instruments are organized and ready to go back in the closet, and if you can see in the background, all of the "treasures" from the back closets have been boxed up and fit into one closet! Hooray! 

So - here's what things looked like last week...let's just say they are my "before" pictures. Tomorrow we start inservice, and Thursday we start school. I have a few minor things to unpack/finish organizing tomorrow, then I can decorate and really make the room mine! There will be lots of bright colors and "after" pictures to come! :) 

By the way, I could write a whole tribute to the wonderful custodians at my building! They have been so gracious to take the "piles" away as I cleared them from the closets, and one man even came and vacuumed all my shelves in the closets to get the dust cleared out before I put everything back. Then, when the vacuum didn't work well enough, he personally spent almost an hour using a dust cloth and spray to get the rest out!! Wow!! I am SO thankful! Every role in a school building is an important one! 

So, there you have it for now...confessions of an ultra-organized, excited for the third year school teacher who is looking forward to sharing "after" pictures with you soon so that you don't have to think my room looks like THIS all year! Happy New Week to everyone!