Quick Tour of my Classroom

So I have been back at work for over a week now. 

We had 7 teacher work days, which is more than we have ever had before. 

However, we have only had a total of 6 and 1/2 hours to actually work in our classrooms. 

Which...lemme tell you....isn't enough. 

We had 2 and 1/2 days that we had to spend in "7 Habits of the Highly Effective Person"--3 separate faculty meetings--convocation--a two hour training in which they taught us not to friend our students on Facebook---gradebook training---MAP training---504 meetings---and other crazy amounts of meetings. 

I am usually the person that had my room done before everyone else and end up playing games in the hall with other teachers. That was NOT the case this year. 6 and 1/2 hours is simply not enough time. When my friend Jake walked into my classroom this morning he said, "Wow, your room is a mess! I feel so much better knowing you are behind too!"

There are still kinks to work out....but it is functional enough to work when the kids come tomorrow. 

Here is a quick tour:

Here is the classroom rule section of my chalk board. Don't judge the non clean chalkboard! I have not had time to pick up any goo-b-gone, much less, spend the time it would take to de-goo it yet!

When a kid breaks a rule I write their name on a Post-It that corresponds with the rule they they broke and it goes into quadrant I. If they break the rule again, it goes into quadrant II, and so on and so forth. This way I (and the kids) can keep track of what behavior step they are on. 

Another section of my chalkboard with my Vista Print goodies. Again don't judge the non clean chalkboard. 

Far end of my chalk board!

This is my student book shelf.

Top shelf contains student supplies that they are free to use

On the next two shelves I color code each class.  Each class has a turn in basket and a graded work magazine holder.

The middle shelf is currently holding things I have to pass out.

The bottom has old textbooks I need to either remove or organize.

I decided to have a word wall this year for a very specific reason. I am tired of students saying, "What is symbolism?" after we have covered it 187 times. Once we fully cover a term I am going to put it on the word wall. If it is up there, students are NOT allowed to ask me "What is so and so?" They will either have to look it up in their notes or rephrase the question to say, "Is symbolism when you...fill in the blank?"

***Side note you can sort of see that I taped playing cared to the desks. That is how I will randomize seating tomorrow.

I have used a shoe rack in my kitchen for years to hold utensils so I finally decided to buy one for the classroom to hold all of my supplies. I hung them on 3m clips so that I can easily take it down, fold it up, and lock it away if I ever have to be out so nothing will be stolen! All of the colored pens bring me joy. 

I bought a drying dish rack so that it can hold my lesson plan folders in the spots where the plates would go. The place for utensils holds pens too! (A student gave me that snow globe for Christmas last year!)

Somehow a wine rack got left in my house one year so I bought some colored cups at Wal Mart and use it to hold more of my pretty pens!

I have owned a label maker for a few years but I never had batteries for it so I never used it. Today I had batteries.  One of my Co-Workers has decided that his motto for this year is going to be, "Not my problem!" I decided to change it up and made us both labels that said, "Not my circus, not my monkeys" on it to place on our windows. 

This, my friends, is what nine weeks worth of copies looks like. It is really bugging my that the blue box is making the top row of the white boxes bow a little, but I have no where else to put it!

My life blood....my coffee maker.

This is a view of my desk, but again things are still a mess and not completely organized!

I thought I would take a picture of the front of the room when the kids walk in as well. Here I keep the hand sanitizer and my PaperPot.  I bought it over the summer and I love it! You put a roll of toilet paper inside and use it as tissues...so much cheaper!

I also have my pencil sharpener, electric stapler, the handouts the students need to pick up on their way into class, and my Step up to Writing highlighters.

So that is the quick tour of my still messy and not completely organized room....which makes me sad.

I realized while I was writing this that I forgot to take some pictures of different elements of the room.  However, that could be because one of my former students came back to visit and my co-worker next door decided it would be a good idea to give the child massive amounts of bubble wrap....so I was a little distracted.

Anyway, tomorrow they will unleash the hounds.....wish me luck!

A few people have sent me email about my Paper Pot....If you click the picture above it will send you to it on Amazon.com....FYI I love it and would recommend it!