Classroom Photos-Part II

I finally got around to taking some photos of my classroom a week ago (and it was a dark rainy night at 7 PM so the photos are a bit dark).  I posted my Classroom Photos-Part I.  Those photos really just gave a 360 view of my classroom.

Today I am posting some more close-up photos for you to see.  The focal point of my classroom this year is definitely my Math Focus Wall surrounding my SMARTBoard.  I have to say I love it and promise that I will dedicate an entire post just to that once I get it completely finished.  It continues to be a work in progress.

My favorite addition to my classroom.

Another area that I love is the corner where I keep my Learning Stations/Math Manipulatives.  I moved my Desktop computer over there and the "Be a Star" bulletin board which is still under construction.

Do you love the zebra border?  It's magnetic!

Still under construction

These are a couple posters I have on the back of my classroom door, so when the door is closed students can see them.  I designed them on Vista Print and you may have seen them before on Pinterest.    I have seen others that have used my idea to make their own version.  Now that we are doing Carnegie Learning I would like to make some new posters that fit our delivery model a bit better, but these definitely work for now.

First Five Minutes Poster

Two Minute Countdown Poster

One of my favorite areas is my teacher corner.  I have a pentagonal shaped room that has a very small back corner area that is pretty useless, but it ends up being perfect for my desk and file cabinets.  Several years ago the custodians put up the shelves on the back wall which made the space much more useful.  This year I really pushed things back because of creating the focus wall and to give as much space for student desks as possible.  It is very crowded cozy in my classroom!  I love how my back corner is organized and this year it's even better than ever with the filetastics I purchased this summer.

One of my favorite purchases of the summer!

My desk.  You can see my hour files on the right.

The full view.

My no sew banner.  Those strips are where I pin all important information so it's right at my fingertips.

Back shelves.  Need to make labels for everything.

My paper sorters.  Don't you LOVE the zebra file folders?  And my fave the wall of artwork from my sons.

This still needs to be organized, but it is neat for the most part.

Love my lanterns.  I spy another filetastic.  I have four total.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my classroom.  I am hoping to get back to posting more regularly on my blog.  The first couple weeks really kicked my butt with all the technology integration (well that part was easy, it was when the technology didn't work that was tough).  It has been a huge learning curve this year with a new curriculum (Carnegie and I LOVE it!) and the technology shift (not used to PCs at all).  The good news is that other 7th grade math teachers and I are all muddling through it together.  We have PLC time three days a week for content so it has been a blessing to be able to work together and troubleshoot together.

My students have been great and my class sizes are 26, 27, 28, and 28.  The poor 8th grade teachers have classes of 30+.  Fortunately for them they have much bigger rooms than ours.  I do not know where I would put too many more bodies in our tiny rooms.  I actually have 29 desks in my room so I am waiting for a little bit to make sure none of my classes go above 28 before I get rid of the extra desk.  That will give a little more space for walking between those two groups of desks.