Room To Breathe

It's not really news that I've gone back to work, but the biggest headliner of all is that I was given an extra space for my guidance lessons (I used to have them in my smallish office and we were definitely cramped in there, especially by the end of 3rd grade!) and I've been like a kid in a candy store getting it ready! Unless you've been to my school (Kim!), you won't really have a frame of reference as to how wonderful this is, but let's just say that not only will we be able to dance without doing the bump, but we'll also be able to circle up without getting smushed (Why yes, Ms. Spellcheck, I DO know that that's not really a word) together. We'll also have room to breathe!

Let me give you a little tour. So when the school was first built, this was the reception and waiting area outside of the Principal's office, which is currently my office.

So I'll be in the rocking chair and this is where the kids will sit 

when we're reading a book together or talking.

I made this interactive word-search bulletin board for our first lesson. The older kids can find PEACE plus some extra character words in every direction, the younger ones can find the words that go left to right and my kinder kids can find the first letter of their name or travel through the alphabet and find all of the letters sequentially! I can see switching the letters around and changing my focus word for subsequent lessons - or maybe even challenging them to a round of Boggle.

We brought the kids' toy chest from home!

This is the wall opposite the PEACE board. I've hung a class contract, some counseling standards (thanks for the inspiration, Andrea!), and a Kelso's Choices poster. The little storage unit below is for some games that I play with the kids along with some bubble wrap in the red drawer, stress balls in the green draw, and nothing right now in the blue drawer! I'm bound to have something for that empty drawer. The green door on the right goes into the workroom.

This is the door which leads to my office. The AP just came in and asked if I'd ever want to take that door off, which got me to thinking that it might be kind of fun to hang those beads in the doorway. But for now it's a blue door that connects G1 (my office) and G2 (my groups and guidance suite).

When the school was built 43 years ago, there were glass windows where these white panels are now. It was enclosed a few years back for privacy. There are doors on both sides. (I have a lot of doors now, six actually). It's the perfect spot for my bench with a basket of puppets and a few of their stuffed-animal friends. Our Character Corral is painted on hallway other side.

And my daughter is making twelve feeling tiles for the ceiling!

Anyway, I'm doing a happy dance for sure, in anticipation of my first guidance lesson in my suite new space!

To check out other classrooms and take their virtual tours, visit the School Supply Addict blog {here}.