Rainy Days and Tuesday!

That's not exactly how the song goes but it fits for today!  Rain has FINALLY descended upon northeast Indiana!! The brown grass is starting to show a bit of green!!  Hip Hip HOORAY!!!

I'm locked in the breakfast nook with my two best buddies, Cass and Maddie, (the dogs) listening to the sounds of my carpets being cleaned!  Boy oh boy did they ever need it!  Two big dogs running around with huge paws, drooly jowls, and who knows what else! sure makes for dirty floors!

BTS has set in with a FURY!  I am seriously panicking about the next few weeks.  I am headed off to Indy tonight for a Kristina Smekens conference on Launching the Writing Workshop.  I can always use more advice on starting that up since writing is just not my best quality!  Then next week I'm off to Bloomington for a 3 day Literacy Conference with some big names--Ellen Keene, Katie Wood Ray, Richard Allington, to name the ones I'm interested in.  Tim Rasinski was supposed to be there but had to cancel--drat!

So I've been TRYING to get into my classroom.  But, NO!  The maintenance dept. decides it has to tar the parking lot!  Thank goodness for RAIN!  At least I've been able to get in the last few days to get a few things accomplished but we've got some training coming up and you know how it is when everyone starts coming in - lots of TALK and not much work!  August 10th is going to be here WAY  before I'm ready for it!!

Here are a few pictures of my room before:

This is looking in from the door.

 The view from the right corner.

 The view from the far left corner.

Just looks like a lot of tables and chairs, doesn't it!  Well, there are about 2 more tables in there than I had last year.  Go figure!  

I did manage to get things arranged, my room library back on the shelves and a few things up.  Here's what my word wall looks like.

This is actually the picture from last year.  We don't have the computers this year - now we have 4 iPads - so I moved the word wall down so it's more at kid eye level.  I really like using the Target Dollar Spot pocket charts and I'm hoping that with it being lower this year, it might be a bit more interactive!

No shortage of giveaways this summer!  Everyone must be joining up new blogs left and right!! Here are the latest!

Jenn at Finally in First is giving away her Decoding Strategies for Parents, an awesome reference guide to keep parents on track with what's happening at school! 

Amy at The Resource(ful) Room is have a Blogiversary!  Hurry her giveaway is almost over!

Sara at Miss V's Busy Bees has lined up some wonderful prizes from her bloggy friends!

Check out the giveaway at Teaching Joys!  Kohl's and Starbucks!!

Ta-Ta for now!