My Classroom August 2012 - September 2013

August 2012

When I was first assigned my classroom, I had so much clean up to do!  I've heard stories about new teachers coming in and not having anything to work with.  I had the exact opposite problem.  I had too much to work with.  I've had to do so much purging.  And honestly, I could easily still do a lot more.  (I have a ton of books that weren't even written this century.  I'm debating if I should donate them elsewhere or just toss them.) 

What I love about my classroom is that it is huge, there are several cabinets, tons of counter space, and built-in book shelves.

 September 2012

I just wanted to include this photo of triumph.  Notice something different from the photos above?  My projector broke right before the first day of school.  I had to turn all of the desks to the left and teach on the marker board.  This lasted a few days.  Even though they had a new projector ready for me, we had to wait for the guy to come in and install it.  I was so excited when I finally got my projector up and running!

June 2013 

This is what my classroom looked like when I left it for the summer.  I wish I had started taking pictures before I took down all of the posters.   I leave no available space on the walls.  I was very excited about this one little change.  I had two filing cabinets behind the door.  One three drawer and one five drawer.  The five drawer was filled with union stuff (from the 70s and 80s) because the previous classroom teacher is a past president.  Another teacher needed a five drawer filing cabinet, and since I wasn't using it or planning to use it, I let her take it.  After we emptied it out, I told her that I was thinking of moving the large cabinet to the corner behind the door.  She helped me and we moved it right then and there.  Now I have this beautiful space to hang even more posters.  (It also freed up space to huddle for all of our upcoming emergency drills.)

September 2013

Here is my classroom set up for this school year.
View from the door:

 My wall of windows with cabinets and book shelves underneath:

I'm going to start referring to this corner as my student resource center.  It has a calendar of homework assignments, absent work, test corrections forms, loose-leaf paper, scrap paper, extra hand outs, my after school schedule, and of course, a bunch of inspirational quotes.

My wall with whiteboards- one for homework assignments, one for class objectives, and one blank one (My students like to fill that one in with a quote of the day or SAT problem of the day.):

View from my desk (I have my desk set up in rows right now.  I did finally find a way to group the desks into tables, and I'm going to experiment with that this year.):

The front of my room - SMART Board, student recognition board, chalk board, etc.:

My bulletin board wall with the beginning of my vocabulary wall for Geometry, and four brand new student computers:

That is how my classroom looks right now.  I will post about updates as I make them.