Ack! Ok everyone, I’m just trying to keep it real here and show you what kind of disaster occurred to my beloved school room over the summer. The kids playing in here definitely took its toll and I was procrastinating even going in there!

But fear not, this is definitely the BEFORE picture!

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And after several hours complete madness one evening…ahh, everyone can breathe a sigh of relief. Everyone left me alone while I was working on this, I think they could sense the urgency. Here’s the AFTER picture:

Is it wrong that I don’t want to let my kids in here now?

I organized all of our manipulative containers in shelves along the back wall. I tried to put all the pre-k stuff on the pink shelves and then the math stuff and older kid’s manipulatives on the blue shelves.

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The only dangerous thing here is that the Teeny Tot can easily get to all of this, but then it will also eliminate the climbing that was going on before, so…

The blue and white drawers contain puzzles, coloring supplies, blocks etc.

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Here is my armoire it contains all my teacher supply stash. The white shelves next to it have some games and our Expedition Earth Geography supplies and books!

And here are our desks, they are on opposite walls, older kids on one side, smaller ones on the other. Wondering what the drawers are for? We use the Workbox System and LOVE it!

Click here to read more about Workboxes including workbox printables!

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Where’d I get that?

  • Workboxes: I got mine at JoAnn’s on sale for 50% off, that makes them about $30 ea. A reader just let me know that they are now at Sam’s club for $30/ea too!
  • Student Desks: Purchased from a church school closing for $5 ea! I suggest you check Craig’s List for student desks list before paying full price!
  • White Board: Purchased from a church school closing for $5 ea! I suggest you check Craig’s List for white boards before paying full price!
  • Student Chairs: These were our play chairs from Pottery Barn, they were overpriced and I would not buy them again! Check Craig’s List again!
  • Alphabet Tree: I purchased it from Lakeshore Learning, it was a bulletin display! You could probably make a cute palm tree from construction paper for free!
  • Animal World Map: I purchased this from Costco for about $8

So that’s our room for the start of 2010-2011. Hopefully it stays all nice and pretty like this, but I’m not really holding my breath on that one.

41 Comments

  1. Wow! The school room looks great! I'm just starting out with preschool and tot school, and I'm jealous of all of your storage!!! LOL. I have a closet and it's all not fitting in there right now, which is driving me nuts. I've got to work on our storage problem.

  2. Thanks for keeping it real. I can totally relate to your comment of not wanting to let the kids into the area now that it is organized (but of course we will — it is for them — !! Thanks,too, for the reminders to check used places to get neat school stuff. I will check out that link to workboxes, I think another woman I know uses those & I'm curious.

  3. "Is it wrong that I don't want to let my kids in here?" Ha, ha! I feel the same way. After working on my school room for about 3 days, I think it's practically perfect. Fortunately my kids are with grandparents right now so I'm just soaking in the "clean" while I can before they get back. Good to know that I'm not the only person who feels that though! Cheers!

  4. It looks great Erica! I have re-arranged our room about 5 times since we started and I am finally happy with what we ended up with. It's funny how you think a certain set up will work, but then realize after you start school how badly it works. I will take pictures of ours and post on my blog.

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