I was inspired by Jenny's post about her super cute library to post about my classroom. Please keep in mind that my school is over 50 years old (so ignore the stains on the carpet), and I am no Beth Newingham . Welcome to Room 308!

When you first walk in my door this is what you see. The table at the front is where I do most of my teaching, which is mostly guided reading.

This is the view from my desk. Notice those stains now? Haha! You can also see Blogger pulled up on my computer. I love our tables. They're colorful and cheerful. I really do like them over desks.
Another view of the room. My reading corner is next to that window. Here's a closer peek.

My chair came from a garage sale for $20. It used to have an ottoman, but there's just not enough room for it here. This is where the kids can do independent reading in centers, and where we meet to do some of our reading skills. Today we compared and contrasted biographies and autobiographies using the Ruby Bridges book you see here.

This is our library. Most of the books are mine from when I was a little kid. They are organized by genre. I can't take credit for the labels. I stole those from Beth Newingham. (Sorry for the lighting. It's actually NOT RAINING today!)

Our Center board. This is how the kids know what centers to go to. It's a life saver. This year my kids rotate by color of tables, but I've done group numbers when I have had desks instead of tables. The icons come from a Fountas and Pinnell book.
My sad desk!! I used to have a cute little holder thing on it, and then my kids started stealing my stuff. :-( Notice my new Tervis Tumbler (love it!), and the fact that there's no picture in my frame. Oops. I keep meaning to put one in there from the wedding, but I just haven't yet. I always have a folder with that day's papers in it. Of course me being a scrapbooker...

I make mine cute. Ugh. Just turn your head upside down. I have no idea why it did that. I've covered plain file folders with cute school-related scrapbook paper, labeled them (like I do everything else), and made friends with the copy lady so she would laminate them for me.
Well, that's all I have time for today. I wanted to share this with you though. In reading The Ruby Bridges Story with my kids this morning, I was really struck by her prayer at the end of the book. If you have never read this, I recommend it. It's about one of the first little girls to enter an integrated school. Every day she would pray for the people who yelled things at her. This was her prayer...
Please, God, try to forgive those people.
Because even if they say those bad things,
They don't know what they are doing.
So You could forgive them,
Just like you did those folks a long time ago
When they said terrible things about You.
Wisdom from the mouths of babes.