Making the Classroom My Own

My classroom underwent some remodeling this summer as well. That door leads to another classroom, and before the big remodel, all of the students coming to my classroom had to walk through the Geometry classroom first, disrupting their class on the way.

Here are a few pictures I took during the demo. This big pipe? It's sewage. They rerouted it along the ceiling and continued demolition.

Look how big and open it is now.

And here is how the room looks today. I write a new quote on this board every class period for the kids to discuss. This quote from Samuel Adams led the kids into a great discussion that week.

This photo is looking into the new hallway. For the whole first week of school, this new hallway was like a circus sideshow attraction. Kids would bring their friends into the room, exclaiming, "Have you seen the new hallway? It's amazing!" I don't know if it qualifies as amazing, but I think it's pretty cool.

I covered the old Geometry door with presidential campaign bumper stickers, hoping they would lead to some good discussions about the election, but so far there has been little talk of the issues and more personal attacks in the media. Here's hoping the candidates discuss something substantive so we can discuss something substantive. I won't waste my classes' time on character attacks.

Ticket Out is an assignment the class does once every other week or so, using sticky notes. As the class leaves, they stick their assignments right there on the wall.

And here's the view of my class from the back row (also known as Canada for some reason I don't fully understand). Unfortunately, the Betsy Ross flag had to come down when they redid the screen this summer, and I didn't have an iron with me the day they rehung it. I keep hoping the wrinkles will work themselves out, but I don't think it will happen now. Each flag represents one period of history that we will address this year. Do you know which each of them represents?

The class also sports two brand new maps--one US and one World. I love my maps, even though it took some fancy engineering to figure out how to hang them so they swivel out of the way when that big wall collapses to the right to create one HUGE room.

Do  you see my 1959 unabridged dictionary on the bottom left? Some of my kids take advantage of that dictionary and find a word of the day to share with the rest of us.

My classroom. It still sounds foreign, but the more time I spend in here, the more it feels like mine.