Classroom Unveiling!

Hi! My name is Julianne and I'm a first year High School Mathematics teacher. I work for a small school in the NYC public school system. I finally got my classroom to where I'm okay for other people, outside of my colleagues and students, to see it! 

I took a lot of inspiration from the internet, and there is still lots of work for me to do!

This is the view from my door. I have the kids sitting in groups. I had them in rows for about two months and that only caused them to move their desks together. I caved and made groups for them. So far it's working, they enjoy that they can interact with their friends while still taking part in the lesson. 

View of the small table on the left of the door frame. On here I have a box of folders with the name of each student, each class has a different colored tab. I put anything they are missing in these folders, work if they're absent, or if I have a lot of work to give back I will place them in these folders. The kids know that if they were absent, or want to check if they are missing any work they can find it in there. Along with the folders I have my amazing straw/pencil dispenser, along with my eraser dispenser (one of my students actually broke it today, I was a little upset, but nothing a little krazy glue won't fix!) And then there is a pile of graph paper and scrap paper they can take from if needed. 

This is the bulletin board above the desk. I have a weekly calender that I made using the laminating machine. It's five squares, one for each day of the week. This displays the weeks learning objectives in short and when things are due for that week. I also have my bathroom pass pinned to the board and a the bathroom log is hung with a command hook nearby. 

This is a view of the board right adjacent to the bulletin board. The red pocket folder contains any homework or handouts that were used during the current unit. On the chalkboard I have our scoreboards. I'm trying out Whole Brain Learning right now, so if they wind up with more points than me they won't get a Christmas assignment (ooo)!

This is a view of my desk from the door. The wires are a little messy, but I'm looking to tape them down. You can see my projector sitting by the window, along with all the projects the kids did that I have to hang up. Note my holiday garland. 

Close up of my desk. I've got a very tiny desk, and the kids are constantly sitting at it, so I try not to have too much stuff on it to give them room to work. I love my magazine holders, they're a perfect fit for my Common Core Portfolios. Next to them I have the dual-sided white boards, and next to that is my little math library. The kids can take a look at the books whenever they want, they do a great job of connecting what we're learning to the real world. (One of my students drew that picture of Michael Myers, he's a gem.)

View of my back wall. I currently only teach three classes, I'll be adding two more sections come February though. I have some of our more important definitions up on the world wall, we always come back to these in our class discussions. Each class has their own bulletin board in the back. The room came with those boards as blackboards, so I bought cork board tiles and converted them to allow me to make use of them. The classes are noted by the frame hanging above them. I found cheap frames and use a peel and stick chalkboard bit to write what period it is from. Love them!

View from the back of the room. The SmartBoard is very close to my desk, which I don't particularly like, but it's fine. I post my agenda behind my desk along with reminders (this will be changing though). I placed more of our more important definitions above the board to hide the horrid brown cork. Worked out perfectly. 

View from my desk. The back bookcase is a whole other project, I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it. Most of the shelves are bent beyond belief and it doesn't really fit anywhere. The blackboard to the left of the picture is also not finished, I've got plans to turn that whole bit into a cork-board once I have the funds. 

Finally this is a view from my desk to the front door. The horizontal and vertical is pulled straight from Pinterest. The blue covered cork is where the projects will be hanging soon enough!

So that's it! I hope you enjoyed the small tour of my classroom. My kids love that I put so much into making it feel homey for them. It's a small room, but I like to think I make it work.