Please don't judge, as these are pictures of my room with everything thrown up off movable items and tucked away for cleaning. Yep, once a year, they move everything and wax. Well, almost everything. Thank goodness my filing cabinets can stay put, or else I would have been moving more stuff than I already did into the greenhouse.
Basically, this is my blank slate for this coming year. As I was hired at the last minute last year (had less than 48 hour notice to get my butt across the state for new teacher training), I didn't get to do much in this space. Over the year, we did get the banners up, which is definitely something I like, though I would like to see my kids earn some that are more recent. Yes, there is one up there that is as old as I am (though not pictured, as I figured no one would steal my banners).
Tour of the classroom
This is in the back of my room. The black cabinet on the left has something to do with the modems out my way, so it is big, black, bulky, and bothersome. But at least it is metal, so I can use magnets to hang things on it.
The tan cabinet decorated with stickers holds supplies. Lots of supplies. I'm working on organizing it, but it's not there yet. Stay tuned for more pictures as the summer goes!
The filing cabinets were originally a scary thing when I first arrived, as they were FULL of paper. But I realized that the teacher before me (or two before me, don't know which) was really organized and had files for every worksheet. I didn't have to make nearly as many copies as I would have because everything was there, ready. I do plan on changing how I do paper in my class this year, but that's a discussion for later.
All that stuff on top? Yah, about half of it was spread across the room, but because I couldn't just leave all of it hanging around, I threw it up there. To the chagrin of my not actually my real department chair. Again, another story for another time.
Moving right along, we have my lovely little rolling table and the stackers (collected and nested) that I used for all my loose paper last year. I plan on continuing that, but with some modifications. The grey/black thing is my COW. As it is staying in my room for the entire year, I plan on getting some white contact paper and some black yarn and making it into a real cow. I mean, come on! I teach agriculture. I might even put on some felt ears.
The orange boxes that you see off to the side hold my rat's nests of mice (pun partially intended?) I plan on shortening the cables by zip tying them into more manageable lengths.
Also, up at the top, you see my clock. The clock that took almost a month of complaining about to get installed. Before that, I had to just go with my gut and pray that I paid attention to what time it was. Yah, the kids weren't keen on that.
Here is another picture of that lovely COW and then my printing station. I am extremely grateful to have not one, but two printers in my classroom. One is color and one is black and white. In writing this post, I realized that table really looks messy, especially during the year. I find all sorts of junk under it. I might try to make a table skirt for it out of some sheets to hide all the mess. And it would make the classroom look nicer too. Yay for velcro and a sewing machine.
You also get to see part of that banner wall (imagine it stretches across about two thirds of the long wall of my room). I got that paper at a screaming deal, which is awesome. I also have a bunch of ink cartridges, as well as individual white erase boards under there. The stepstool usually lives behind the COW, as everyone should have a stepstool, rather than climbing on chairs (which I've NEVER done *cough cough*).
I plan on taking the two top posters down and leaving the PRIDE and blue posters up. One of the things 40HTW mentions is only have posters that you teach to on the walls. I'm definitely embracing that this year. And the number of posters I took down when I first got here last year is actually kind of incredible.
I put these two together so you can better see what this corner of the room looks like. The counters had to be cleaned better than this when I got checked off, but you get the gist of it. The books on the bookshelves are checked out to me as class sets, so I keep them in the room. We reference them some of the time, but that is in part due to me not knowing what was in them to teach from them. I do have some digital copies of textbooks for their online notebooks, which will be really nice.
Also, see that corner cupboard? That thing was chock full of magazines that had been cut up. It took two to three trips out to the recycling bin to clean it out. And it turned into the shove everything away so I can leave for the summer cabinet. Such is life.
I do plan on bringing down three of the four banners you can see on the walls, as well as putting the dust brooms and bins somewhere else. The Pasco Pride banner is staying up, both because it was a gift from one of my advisory members and it is just cool. That means, hopefully, I will have more space for posters that I actually use over the year.
I do really like having these counters over here, as they are great for storing stuff. I just need to get stuff in better structure to help everything along. Also, I have this crazy idea of covering the cabinets with contact paper (hopefully to match the contact paper on my desk) to get rid of the industrial blah, as well as try to bring some color into the space. Not too much mind you, but a nice grey and white pattern would be wonderful. I also plan on moving some stuff from around the room to over by the corner of the whiteboard.
I didn't really have a picture of my board, though I really love the fact that I got corn borders a long time ago and kept them around. I'm super excited that I get to use. them. Everyone mocked me for loving them so much, but I don't care! They are a fun, easy touch to add to the room.
Pictured above is my one and only door that leads out to the rest of AgLand. The brown bookshelf holds all of my student binders for the year. I really don't know what I'm going to do with the binders for my sophomores this year, as we are transitioning to trimesters. They are going to be a first and third trimester class, which means I will need to find a home for their binders for a trimester. But I will deal with that when I come to it. The tall bookshelf has a bunch of magazines for reference/articles, as well as my officer binders. I think we will need to look through that and streamline those this next year, as it is a bit of a mess. The short bookshelf holds part of my class library - all non fiction, surrounding science and agriculture. Below that are a range of different materials that I haven't decided what to do with yet. I'm probably going to take some of these posters down as well, just due to the fact that some of them are out of date and some I don't reference.
This picture doesn't show a ton, based on the window, but that little black cabinet holds scrapbook paper for our FFA chapter, as well as some other training materials. The top of it usually is host to our hole punches, staplers, and tape dispensers, though I have thought about putting the tape away during substitute visits, as one time I came back to someone having "taped" a tree outside. The tree has two jobs. One, it adds some greenery to the space and two, it is my hall pass. I got tired of students taking my laminated passes, so they now have to carry this. I know they usually just leave it out past my portable, but here's to hoping that I can check them more often.
My desk isn't pictured in this, but it is between the tree and this lovely, overflowing bookshelf. I have this nice little L shape going for a desk area. I really like it, though I think I need to work on the organization here as well. This has a lot of reference materials, but I have found I haven't used much of them. I need to come up with a different idea for these, but haven't figured out exactly how yet.
Last, but not least, is our Official dress "closet" and my tool kits, hanging on the black cabinet that is a wonderful suck of space. At least I've gotten some vertical use out of the space. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The closet was here when I got here, and I actually love it. I have gotten some donations from people throughout the year of shirts, pants, and skirts for my students. Many of them don't have the extra funds to purchase what they need, so I have been diligent in trying to get stuff for them. This is another space that I would like to have a curtain around, just to hide how junky it looks. I'm definitely going to keep that in the back of my mind going forward. I also need to replace those paper boxes with something that looks better, even if it is just covering the paper boxes with contact paper.
Next up are my tool kits. They need a bit of TLC after a year with students, but they held up surprisingly well. These have the following items in them, with a kit for each person.
- two pencils
- a blue or black pen
- a red/purple/green pen for correcting
- a set of colored pencils
- a manual pencil sharpener
- a highlighter
- a large, pink eraser
They started out as kits for when I was going to do interactive notebooks a while back, but I have since changed that plan. Even though I have changed from that, my students still have issues coming to school prepared. This is my fix for that. I plan on being stricter with taking it with them to their seat, rather than just taking what they need, as they typically won't return what they took at the end of the period. Baby steps.
And that's my room! I had grand ideas for it this year, yet haven't gotten started on said grand ideas because of oodles of training. I hope I can get some small things done this year and continue to work on it throughout the year.
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