Classroom Tour

Time for the long-awaited classroom tour!  I was sitting on the couch, wrapped up in a fleece blanket, battling a nasty case of the sniffles.  Erik had taken Jacob outside for some run-around time, so I thought that between bonding with Kleenex and trying to unstuff my ears, I'd write this post up.

So, welcome!

This is how my classroom looked shortly after the first day of school.  Still nice and clean.  And since then I have changed the seating arrangement (but only slightly).  I originally started with four L-shaped groups and two table groups.  The L-shape was great, but I found that when asked to work in the groups, the L-shaped guys didn't really do that.  They tended to work individually.  Which is great, but not when you need them to do some group things.  So I pushed the Ls together and turned them into table groups, too.

"New" arrangement

Sorry about the chairs being up on the desks, but it was the end of the day and I didn't feel like (a) telling my kids not to put them up and then putting them up by myself, or (b) taking them down by myself and then putting them back up by myself.  You take what you can get.

Those pictures were taken from the door into my room.  I'll walk you around from that starting point.  First up:  the Bravo cabinet (totally taken from Pinterest):

The idea here is to put up outstanding work on the clipboards.  I'll display student work in other places too, but I thought this would be a nice way to "showcase" assignments from each class.

From there, we move along to the Second Chance Scoring and Absent Work areas:

Students will turn in their Second Chance Scoring work in the labeled drawers.

Binders hold info for what we did that day; bins hold copies of handouts.

Here are close-ups of those two spaces:

Original handout from Eat. Write. Teach. blog; modified by Emily.

The idea is to make the students as self-sufficient as possible.  Ideally, when it comes to making up absent work, they should check the binder and locate the handouts, then come talk to me about the things they missed.  The Second Chance Scoring is new to us this year, so I'm not really sure how that's going to go.  It has its positives, that's for sure, but could have some drawbacks as well.  We'll see how many students actually take advantage of the opportunity.

In the cabinets above the Absent Work area, I house my composition folders:

I got those suckers at Target -- pocket folder with grommets for looseleaf paper/3-hole punched paper -- for for 15 cents each!  I still don't know what I'm going to do with my GT kids.  I kind of want them to get a 1-inch binder that they could decorate.  I want composition folders to be meaningful.  So often the kids just throw the work away at the end of the year.  I kept my composition binder from high school -- but I think part of the reason was because it was in a binder.  Now if only I could remember what I've done with it since then...

The back board of my classroom is divided into sections for each class.  I have space for the objective, the agenda, and the homework.  I'm teaching four sections of classes this year -- Standard 9, Honors 9, GT 10, and Freshman Seminar -- so the back board was the only space that would hold all of the information in one place.

Objective, agenda, and homework -- all in one place!

There is a container on each student group table that holds "necessary" class items:  markers (thick and thin), colored pencils, highlighters, glue sticks, scissors, tape, a mini-pencil sharpener, and post-it notes.

And then over by the window, I have a cart that has other "necessary" items: hole-puncher, tissue, hand sanitizer, extra paper, extra pens/pencils/highlighters, copies of magazines for if when we start current event projects.  In the drawer of the cart there are band-aids, rulers, and a few other random things.  Under the cart are some additional supplies for me: chalk, wet-erase markers, and other fun items.

I'd like to get some contact paper or shelf liner and cover the top and bottom of the cart, but I keep forgetting to look for something acceptable.

And then there's my Close Reading bulletin board, which I think I'm going to move so that it's easier to see.  Right now, it's the bulletin board behind my desk.  It's okay there, but since my focus unit with the Freshman Seminar class is going to be on close reading, I feel like it needs to be out in the open a little more.  I also want to redo how it's set up.  It's a little bland and kind of awkward.  I need to make the "flow" of it work a little better.  Don't judge, all you awesome bulletin board making teachers...

And then right at the entrance to the classroom is my information and work collection/return area:

Students hand in work in the drawers (homework and classwork), and then graded assignments are placed in the labeled bins.  On the board is information about consequences for missing work and a reminder for the Second chance Scoring.  Also there is a copy of the bell schedule, and our school calendar as set out in A/B format.  Eagle Expectations is the newest initiative this year, put forth in an effort to get our student population to step up their game.

Finally, my classroom door, which has my Check Your Understanding folders (also copied from something I saw on Pinterest):

As kids complete classwork assignments, they place their work into the corresponding folders.  It's a quick way for me to see how many kids fit into each category, which kids fit into each category, and it gives kids a way to self-assess themselves.

And now, some pictures of my room from different angles, so you can see it all:

From the classroom door

Back corner looking toward outside door

Back board looking forward

Back corner looking toward classroom door

Front corner (by outside door) looking toward the back

Front board looking to back board

 So, there you have it.  My classroom for the 2014-2015 school year.  It's more inviting when I have the blinds open, but that doesn't help much for pictures in this case.  Hope you enjoyed checking out my little corner of the world.