The start of the school year approaches — only a little over a week and a half from now, I’ll be starting my twenty-fifth year in the classroom. Or twenty-sixth? Or twenty-fourth? Twenty-somethingth. This is a year of changes in a lot of ways. My room layout has been, more or less, the same for the last decade. If it works, why mess with it? But now I have a new desk from K and a new bookshelf from our house, so things are getting a little bit of a shakeup.

I’m also planning some changes in the simple things we do every day in class. No more article of the week for on-level classes as the bell-ringer. More discussion in class, more discussions that are simple, shorter. More writing, writing that is less structured and more choice-oriented.

The Boy and I spent a good bit of the late morning and early afternoon in my classroom, arranging things, putting books back on shelves, wiping down a few things.