Classroom Reveal!

Hello again!

I've been so busy getting my room ready and the year started, that I just realized I hadn't posted pics of my classroom!  (Actually, I've dropped the ball on blogging all together in the month of September!  Ugh, sorry!)

This year is really exciting for me.  It's the first time in a few years that I get my OWN classroom!  I've been sharing the past few years, so I haven't been able to make the room truly mine.  It's hard to decorate and organize a classroom with ELA stuff mixed with social studies, math, and even French! It has been so long since I'd set up a room, that I actually didn't mind all the hard work!  (Ask me again next year...I may be ready to share rooms again just to avoid doing bulletin boards-LOL!)

So, here is the new room 22!

I wish I could say that I had new furniture or even a classroom that is close to being 21st century-stylish, but we all work with what we have!  What I have is no teacher desk, and somewhat matching wobbly student desks, and mismatched chairs.  But, at least I have enough seats for my 32(!) students each hour!  I do also have a document camera and projector, new as of last year, and all our students will have 1:1 Chromebooks!  Based on the type of desks I have and the use of technology, I decided to set up the room in a horseshoe with 6 tables inside the horseshoe.  This enables all my students to see the whiteboard, where the projector shows.  It also enables me to stand in the back of the room and see most of the Chromebook screens when students are working on them.

This is my "office".  Since I don't have an actual desk, I'm using an old computer table and table I scrounged from the teacher's lounge to create an L-shape area for me to set up my document camera, laptop, and desk supplies.  Above my desk, I found a cute banner in the Target Dollar Spot and I am posting my "I can" statements below it!  This is a good place to post these since it is literally over my head, so I won't forget to change them!  I chose this corner for my teacher station so that I can also utilize the long table attached to the wall to store my teaching materials, such as copies for the week, teacher manuals, etc.  (Truth be told, I have no idea what this long table was meant for...no other room in my school has one!  I'm guessing my room used to be a home ec room, and sewing machines went here, based on the number of electrical outlets on the wall!)

The other end of the mystery table houses my student turn in bins.  Each hour has their own tray for turning in homework.  This helps me stay organized in my grading!  I also have a file box with folders for each day of the month where I keep extra copies of handouts for students who are absent or have lost work.  They know there will always be extras in the folders; they just have to remember the date that the handout was given to find it!

I also have my late work turn in bin set here.  There is a "LATE" stamp inside for students to mark any late work.  I take points off for late work, but late is better than never!  The other blue bins are student storage bins.  I require my classes to keep an Interactive Student Notebook (more about this in a future blog!).  It is basically our class Bible.  It is practically irreplaceable if lost, so I allow students to leave them in my room if they are worried they may not be responsible enough to keep it in good condition all year.

I'm kind of obsessed with my #ELA display too!  I just discovered Hobby Lobby (I know I'm late to that party, but as I said earlier, better late than never!) and these metal letters were 50% off!  The hashtag even lights up!  The ledge above the bulletin board was the perfect place for them...and then I found some cute wood signs to go with it!  One says "Don't ruin a good today by thinking about a bad yesterday", one says "Look at faces, not devices", and the third says "In case of fire, exit building before putting it on social media!".  

The bulletin board stretches the e-n-t-i-r-e length of my room.  I hit the Dollar Spot jackpot again when I found the cute looseleaf paper banners to hang along the top!  This is my anchor chart wall.  Right now, the parts of speech posters, punctuation poster, and proofreading marks poster are on display, but this will change with whatever we are focusing on at the moment.  It is also my "word wall" with pertinent vocabulary terms to our current units.  (Just FYI, I didn't make the Parts of Speech posters or vocabulary posters, but I did find them on TpT!  There are so many talented teacher-authors out there!) Also on the giant bulletin board, I've hung up a parking space for no-name papers.  The "This belongs to" clipboard was yet another Dollar Spot steal!  My students know that if they have work showing up as missing, that they should look here first!  So far, it's worked really well!  I also posted our PBIS matrix here where it's easily referenced if needed.

I also have this giant bulletin board in the back of my room.  I had NO IDEA what to hang on it at first!  So I decided to hang my students' goals from our first day of school stations here.  I love referring to their goals each day!  They are there as a reminder to students to do their best and to have a growth mindset!

On either side of the goals, I've hung up my Class Expectations posters.  These will also be there year-round as reminders for procedures and expectations.

The most referenced bulletin board is in the front of my room!  All year long, we teach and discuss plot.  I've made a giant plot diagram, and labeled the five stages.  As we read different selections, we'll be sticking sticky notes all over it!  It's a fun interactive, reusable anchor chart!

Next to the Plot Diagram, is my assignment book display.  I wish I had better handwriting, but it works!  I keep a week up at a time which helps students when they are absent.  It also helps me remember what I'm doing with each grade! 

Between the "I can" statements and assignment book display, the board is blank so that I can project whatever I need for the day.  Every class period starts out with a "warm up" slide like this.  Friday was a half-day, so I also posted the time :)

So there you have it!  I'm a month into the year, and I'm loving the functionality and purposefulness of the arrangement.  The students and I have settled into our routines, and I'm loving having my own space.  If you've blogged about your classroom, I'd love to see it!  Comment below with a link to your blog so we can all share ideas!

***If you don't have your own space this year, check out my blog about being a mobile teacher for tips that may help you out!  Being a mobile teacher isn't bad once you get the hang of it!***