New Year and Still Making Changes

Do you ever get to that point in your year where you just want to change stuff around? I've never been a huge fan of my room. I've moved rooms in my building about 5 times and this last room that I am now in, I've never been able to set things up where I think "wow this is great, I love it!" This year I've come close, but of course there are still things I'd love to change. My cubbies for one, the kids don't really use them except for storing things in there that won't fit in their chair pockets. But of course things still fall out and it drives me crazy. The other reason I'm not a fan of them is that the way I put them this year is they cover up the sight line to the entry and I can't see when kids come in. It forms a great little nook for my reading corner, but I'd love to see the kids as they walk in. My thought is to get those plastic drawers that are fairly big, put baskets inside for them to put their writing journals, science notebooks, headphones. Then we they need them, they simply pull out the basket, bring it to their table, and use em! Oh did I mention I would just have everything labeled by their table group? So in my head of course this sounds awesome and I really think it could work. I haven't tried it yet, but I'm getting close.
The other thing I have finally done, is made reading groups. Yes I have gone for almost 80 days this year and only been pulling kids one or two at a time that really need help. This has been great for me, but for my parent helpers who really want to help, they don't know and they need more directions. I've been giving them a list of a few kids to pull and read with, but this has been more work for me and hasn't been consistent and even. So I hit up my local dollar store and $33 later I have bins (and prizes) for groups! I printed off my cute little animal cards and matched them to the color tub, then laminated the card so I can just take my sharpie and write kids' name on there and change the groups when needed. I'm pretty excited about this. It seems like every year I'm able to get things just a little but more organized.

(I will edit this post to put in the pictures. This organization amazing-ness just happened yesterday and I was so tired from the night before I didn't even think to take pictures.