classroom tour

Normally teachers post "classroom tours" right around the first day of school.  I wasn't able to do that this year, though, because my school was renovated over the summer!  Our school looks great now, but getting everything set up was pretty hectic.  So now that we're 4 weeks into the year, my room is totally done and I'd like to do my (better late than never) classroom tour.  

Because of all the construction that was going on, we weren't able to get into our rooms to start working until a week and three days before the start of school.  Here's what my room looked like when I walked in on that fateful Friday:

BEFORE

I'm not going to lie- it was a hot mess in C103.  As you can see, there were desks along the walls and a mountain of boxes (all my stuff) in the center of the room.  I definitely had my work cut out for me.  After a LOT of work and many, many trips to various teacher supply stores, I'm in business!

AFTER

Let's take a full-circle tour...

This is the wall right by my door.  I have my discipline hierarchy on the wall; a table for classroom logs, library and bathroom passes, a turn in tray, and tissues; and my bookshelf where we keep workbooks and folders for each of my three classes.

Next to the bookshelf, we have my desk!  The wall behind it is where I will post any information (bell schedules, school mission, tutoring days, etc.).  The folders underneath are for detention slips, homework club forms, and testing lab forms.

Here's my desk from another angle.  I spy cute pictures of Austie!

This is the front of the room.  I have a lovely SMARTBoard (that started working a few days ago) and a nice sized whiteboard.  You can also see my media computer on the far right.  This is how I display things on my SMARTBoard.

Closer up on my grid calendar:

The side of my room has a built-in cabinet and book shelf.  The shelves were the last things to go in our rooms, and I love the way they turned out.  So much space!  I use them to store our textbooks, dictionaries, and my classroom library.  The "bookworms" wall is a space where I post any books that my students finish during the year.

The back of my room has my big bulletin boards and a reading corner (blue chair and lamp).  The "Say What?!" wall is where I put all of our vocabulary words throughout the year, the "Great Work" wall is where I display student work, and my calendar wall is obviously where I put our calendar. 

I also have to mention our new desks.  Do you notice how there is not a bar on either side, so kids can get in their seats from the right or the left?  Very nifty!

Like I said, the first weeks back at school were c-r-a-z-y, but I think I'm finally settling in and finding my groove.  I like the way my room turned out, and I hope my kids like it too!

Have a great weekend!  BTHO SMU!