Smells like Home Depot in here...

Today was the first day the 7th and 8th graders got to see the new addition to our classroom.  Earlier in the week, some of them had commented on the "sandy gym floor" (sawdust left over from the closet addition).  When they first walked into the room, one girl commented, "Hey, it smells like Home Depot in here!"  Another 7th grader asked me if the boards they used were made of pine.  I have no clue.  All I know is that it's taking up a lot of space right now.  But I did get my reading corner to fit!  It's just way smaller.

All day, students were starting to come up to the front to hand things in... and then they remembered I moved the mailbox to the back of the room.  This is going to take some getting used to.

This summer I'm going to paint the closet the same blue as our classroom walls.  The parent who built it is going to put some trim on the corners to make it look prettier.  I think I'm going to move my desk over by the closet and then put the reading corner where my desk is currently.  There is just not enough room for all the books!  Plus I'm planning to get even more books, and its current location doesn't give a lot of room to grow. 

The piano got a new home, right in front of the cabinets.  Now we have a lot of extra counter space.  I believe we are going to use it as a stand for a class pet or two...  

Today, I had the 6th graders brainstorming what type of pet we should get for our classroom.  We set up general amount of money to spend on our pet, thought about information we should know before buying a pet, and then split up the possible choices to do research.  Right now, our choices are a hedgehog, fish, a lizard, or a turtle.  In the fish category, piranha, jellyfish, glow fish, and dragon fish were all possibilities.  They are so excited!!! I was going to keep it a secret and just have a pet show up one day, but this is just as fun!