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.

Classroom Photos Part I

I survived my first four days of school and promise to a do a blog post all about it later this weekend.  I FINALLY took photos of my classroom.  If you look closely at the clock in my classroom you will see that I was there last night until after 7 PM.  The good news is that my room is in great shape for the upcoming week.

Without further ado, her is a 360 degree view of my classroom.

You can see the door at the right.  That is my assignment board.

The view of my Math Focus Wall from my door.

I condensed my teacher corner even more this year.

My bookshelf and computer cart.  I will explain the post-its in another post.

I hope you enjoyed this very quick tour of my classroom.  I have lot more close up photos that I will share in another post.  I know some of you have been wanting to see what my classroom looks like this year with the zebra accents added.

I'm getting there...

At least that's what I keep telling myself.  :)  It's getting down to the wire here for getting myself and my classroom ready for the start of school.  I don't "officially" start preservice days until next Wednesday, but we have our open house that night and I really hope to have my classroom mostly done before that.  I am sure you all know how difficult to get your room set-up with all the meetings during preservice days.

Yesterday I spent the whole day at school as part of a leadership team data retreat where we set our school improvement goal for the 2012-2013 school year.  It was the first time I was ever part of the data retreat and we had a great group of teachers, counselors, and administrators working together to plan our school roll-out for PD this year.

I have been spending quite a bit of time in my classroom lately working on getting everything organized and set up.  I did some major revamping again this year and so far I love the changes I have made.  I can't wait until a week from tonight when Open House is done and I will feel a sense of relief with my room being all done.

Here are a few photos I snapped today while I was working on my room.  I got my back shelves, desk, and computer table set up.  The rest of the room is pretty much a disaster at the moment.  But as many of you know, things have to get worse before they can better when setting up your classroom.  My classroom set-up style is definitely to spread everything out everywhere and create chaos before I can bring it all together.  Now at least when I go in tomorrow I can sit in by little corner and feel calm amidst the chaos.

Back shelves

Teacher desk and computer table

My little corner.  The filetastic is from Mardel.

I can't believe I am starting back a week from today.  I have been so busy trying to print things out, getting things laminated and cut out, and finish up my focus wall and getting my room arranged and organized.  So many teachers have already been teaching for a week or two, or more.  That's just crazy!

Hope all of you who are back to school have had a wonderful start.  I will be spending the next few days in my classroom.  I will share more photos as I finished getting things put up and arranged.

A peek at my teacher corner (photos)

*Updated for 2012-2013 school year.  I am sharing a couple links of blogs posts with more updated photos of what my classroom looks like this year.  I changed and updated quite a few things.  I added some zebra accents to my color scheme and made a Math Focus Wall surrounding my SMARTBoard.  Classroom Photos Part I and Classroom Photos Part II.


Last fall in the rush off all things that go with getting a classroom set up for school, I posted Part I of my classroom set-up and then never got around to finishing with Part II.  As I was packing up my classroom last month I made sure that I took some photos of my "teacher corner" to share with all of you.  I have mentioned several times about our odd pentagon shaped rooms and the back corner is really wasted space, so a few years ago, I moved my desk and all teacher files/materials over there to utilize the space better.

My cozy teacher corner

My back shelves

Teacher bookcase with my binders and teacher's manuals

Another view

I love the pops of my color scheme mixed throughout

The bright colored storage containers came from Target last summer.  I made the no sew banner and it's the same as the one over my SMARTBoard.  I hope you enjoyed the tour of my "happy place"  when it comes to teaching.  I spent a lot of time (and money) last summer revamping my classroom and I could not be happier with the results.  My students really loved my classroom set-up this year.  Thanks for stopping by!

Finally posting my Vista Print order

Last summer I remember seeing many teacher bloggers posting all of the classroom goodies they have purchased from Vista Print.  It seemed too good to be true, the quality of items they were able to purchase at such a low price.  I am here to tell you that it is true and free does mean free.  I got ten free items with my order and then my shipping was a bit over $40, so I ended up purchasing over $40 of product (in addition to my free items) and paying the same amount because shipping was free on orders over $40.

I placed my order on Dec 29th and it arrived on Jan 5th.  It finally showed up at the end of the day yesterday from the district office where it was dropped off the day before.  For some reason it was actually sent in three separate shipments.  I only paid $40.95 for all of this.  Talk about a steal of a deal!

Vinyl sign

Go CCSS!

My top ten list

First five minutes of class

Last two minutes of class

Labels to give the kids when they do something good.

My free assignment pass front

Free assignment pass back

Free choice math class certificate

Jumbo postcard

Just desserts invitation

Notecard

Post its

Rack cards 

Thank You card front

Thank you card inside

I unpacked my order and took photos of my creations to share with all of you.  It was the last five minutes of Home Base at the end of the day and my students were checking out everything I bought.  They LOVED the posters and were so impressed that I designed them.  Who says middle schoolers don't show appreciation for the little things?

After school several teachers saw my goodies were oohing and aahing over everything.  If you are interested in anything from Vista Print feel free to click my referral below.  LMK if you have any questions.  I have seen some super creative things that other teachers have made.  The possibilities are limitless.   I cannot wait to do another order!

Save up to 80% on custom printed products at Vistaprint. Order today!

After School Routine Checklist

I think it is really important to keep yourself and your classroom organized.  I was not a born organized person, but had to work hard to develop routines and systems to keep myself organized.  As a teacher nothing makes me happier than coming into a clean classroom with everything in its place.  It can be very difficult some days to leave your classroom as organized as you would like (at least it can be for me).

I came up with this end of the day routine a few years ago when I had a student teacher.  The list I gave her was a bit different than this one.  It really helped because I told her that once everything was completed on the list she was free to go home.  I felt it was really important to model good organizational skills for her as she was about to have her own classroom she was in charge of, and unless you let a student teacher realize that it's all the little things that consume so much of our time, your student teacher will not have a realistic view of how much there is involved in managing and maintaining a well organized classroom.

I do try and follow the routine myself every evening because it gives me peace of mind knowing that I can walk right into my classroom in the morning and be ready to go.  I do not like searching frantically for something or standing in line with the last minutes Charlies fighting for the copy machine.  Entering a well prepared classroom that is ready to go gets my day started off on the right foot.

End of the Day routine:

Write out assignment board for tomorrow.

Clear off desk and straighten top drawer.

Organize computer table.

Straighten daily files and file today’s papers.

Start a TO DO list for tomorrow including list of calls/emails to do.

Pack up laptop and cord.

I always take home my laptop, my Lilly Pulitzer notebook, and my pink file for any paperwork 

Pack up stuff to go home:  coat, lunch bag, computer, and purse.

Check files and put projects in order of priority for the morning.

Turn off lights.

      *Unplug lights under window

Leave desktop in wonderful shape to welcome the morning.

   Next day’s file

   Seating chart/class list binder

   Lesson plan book

   Teacher Text

I actually took some of the photos above back in October.  In the spirit of transparency I will show you how things really looked when I walked into my classroom on Tuesday, my first day back after Christmas break.

I cannot emphasize enough how important it is for you to leave your room all organized for the next morning.  That way if you have an emergency and are running late that morning, you know you are ready to go when you walk in the door.  Even more important is that if you end up having an unplanned sick day (and with three boys that happens here from time to time) at least you know you don't have to head into school at 6:30 AM to get things sub ready.

What is on your after school routine checklist?