Places and Spaces: Goodbye To My Office

It's officially July! Can you believe it?!? Yikes!

This month, I start a big change in my life. For the past 8 years, I've worked as an elementary school counselor at the same small school in a rural area of Southern Maryland. I'm finally ready for a change and have switched schools. My new school is bigger, with a different population and just less than 5 miles from home (although the kiddos in my neighborhood are zoned elsewhere). It sure beats loosing an hour of drive time each day! Plus, we're close to food! Real food - not just a mom and pop shop nearby! Exciting, no? This is kind of a big deal. Haha. I'll also be working with my previous principal, who had recently been transferred there.

Anyway, since I'm moving, I thought I'd say goodbye to my old room and share what has been home to me for the past few years. These photos were taken at the very beginning of the school year, so I can't promise that this was the condition of my room just a few weeks ago (and you'll notice a few unfinished projects in the photos). Enjoy! :)

Oh my goodness! I loved, loved, loved my room! I was upgraded from a tiny, closet-sized space to this beauty after a couple of years of being working at the school. This room was just amazing (minus all the bugs that loved to also call this space home). :) Here is the view from the door. Tons of natural light flooding in... You'll see my group table here with my covered chalkboard. I have a chalk allergy, so I decided to cover the board with fabric and trim and hang up some poster frames as make-shift dry erase boards. You can see, I wasn't quite done with them before I snapped this pic. Along the back wall is my sink (which I loved, because I'm a bit of a germ-o-phobe) and my supply closet.

Here's my sink again with my Counseling Rules bulletin board. Each rule was "framed" with thrift shop purchases that were spray painted to match. I attached them to the board by hot gluing thumb tacks to the back.

Here, you'll see my desk and book shelf of books, categorized in book bins that I covered with decorative paper. I shared a wall with the courtyard in the center of the school, which was a great source of beautiful natural light (and a lot of bugs). I even had my own private entrance into the courtyard via the door behind my desk.

Here's a closer pic of my desk. The rainbow bins that you see towards the bottom of my giant bookshelf are how I organize my lessons by grade.

Here's another view of the window, which I decorated with fabric strips of rain falling from cardboard and quilt batting clouds. This was really what started the whole decor scheme in my room. I was sitting in my room one day and a vision or clouds, rain, and a rainbow popped into my head!

This is the view standing in front of the closet doors. You'll see the door that leads out to the hallway, my little lending library (I am sort of obsessed with books, if you couldn't tell!) and my sofa.

Here's a close up of the door, with a lovely painting that one of our students made in art for a Dot Day project. The colorful bags hanging on the door are my current grade level lessons (like I mentioned before, my lessons are organized by color).

Another view of the beloved sofa. :) The bulletin board behind showcases our school wide expectations.

This is the view of the room from behind my desk. You'll see a curtained-off area over in the corner, which house my printer and two small bookcases filled to the brim with toys and games. I've found that keeping these gems covered helps keep the little ones a bit more focused during counseling sessions.

And there you have it! I hoped you liked the little tour. Leave it to me to finally show you my office space after I've moved out of it. Haha. See you again soon! :)