Fourth Year, Fourth Classroom

Well this is the fourth classroom for me in my short 4 year career. All of my classrooms have been very different in their layouts, but this one feels the most like a traditional classroom.

I know it is late into October, but everyone enjoys seeing classroom layout pictures. Please note that my room has changed even more since these pictures were taken. I also move my desks pretty frequently to accommodate the different activities we do, but they default back into groups.


A lot of my posters and decorations I got from Sarah on mathequalslove.blogspot.com If you haven't checked her out, you should! She comes up with some amazing graphic organizers and foldables for all levels of math!

BEFORE PICTURES:   The room looks so white and boring!

AFTER: (Note that it changes just a bit in some of the pictures because I moved the giant useless TV cabinet)

My desk

The back of the room. Each period has a bin to keep their journals in. The board to the left is my information station where I have the bell schedule in a pocket chart because we have 3 different bell schedules depending on Pep Rallys, intervention time, and regular Fridays. I can just switch the times depending on the event happeneng that day. The class calendar is laminated and I write on with wet erase markers. It has due dates and school events. I have my tutorial schedule on the clipboard and have my students sign up to ensure a teacher stays and that they have their work. I'll post about tutorials later.

My word wall above the student supply center. These are words that I had typed out and laminated from last year. The definitions are on the back and they are attached to some twine with clothes pins.

My changing mindset, anchor chart, and problem solving wall. We are required to build anchor charts with each unit and this space is where they are "retired" when the unit is done.

I moved the Promethean Board to the long wall and the TV cabinet by the bookshelf. We don't have cable at school and the announcements don't run on the TV's. The cabinets are locked on the shelf  and the keys have been lost so it is literally useless to me. I was told it couldn't be removed because  the district spent a lot of money on software to project my calculator on it years ago. I HAVE A PROMETHEAN BOARD THAT IS CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET!!! haha Education doesn't make sense sometimes.

My corner of the room. I have important things posted on the little board by my desk of things students and staff have given me. It encourages me when I'm having a bad day.

I use this board to post my objectives and success criteria. I also used some of the class norms from mathequalslove.blogspot.com. On the table are the trays for students to turn in work. I also have all the handouts/supplies for the day on the table so students can pick them up as they come in. (**Update: I moved these to the counter in the back corner because that's where I store extra supplies and I got lazy moving them every day)

Outside my room. Some inspirational math posters and our tutorial calendar. 

Close up of my desk area.

I hope you enjoyed a sneak peak into my classroom. I'll post about some specific details in future posts.
Check back for an awesome update on my class schedule!

I got a new job!

I no longer teach at an alternative school! I am now at a regular 5A high school. My husband graduated from Texas A&M in December and we made the move from College Station in January. It was really hard leaving my old school behind and I still miss the staff and students dearly, but I actually think that this move has helped me grow tremendously as a teacher.

In the spring semester, I subbed in 2 of the area school districts waiting for a HS math position to open up. This was an interesting experience for me and I actually think that every teacher should have the opportunity to substitute teach a couple of times! I learned the importance of sub plans, classroom management, and discipline.

I applied for 15 different HS math jobs, went to 3 job fairs, and finally got 2 interviews (turns out about 8 of the jobs involved coaching). That was a stressful process. My first interview was the day before my birthday and as a birthday present they offered me a job! This ended up being the job that I took because it was closer to home and I felt that the school fit my calling as a teacher.

Once again, I am teaching at a Title 1 school. While my school is very different from my previous school, the student population is very similar.

Some differences include:

• The school size: I went from 150 total in school to 130 in my classes and nearly 2,000 total in school.
• The school colors: I was stocked up in purple and gold shirts and now the colors are green and black.
• No more credit recovery: I'm teaching students for the first time. I get them before they have sat through the class 2-3 times and they don't completely blow me off and claim they will never understand it (although I hear that quite often).
• The students are generally excited to me freshmen.
• The age of my students: the average age is closer to 15 than 18.
• Extracurricular activities- students are involved in sports, clubs, and actually attend tutorials!

Some similarities:

• I teach Algebra 1.
• Title 1 school: low income, but awesome grants that allow us to have Promethean Boards!
• My classroom is very cold and smells a little old,
• My administrators are very supportive and offer a lot of feedback.
• The students at the school aren't always known to have the best academic record, but we're working on changing that reputation!

I think the thing I am most excited about is that I can use my experiences from my old school to help prevent students from dropping out or getting behind. I know that Algebra 1 is one of THE most important classes in a student's high school career. It is usually the class that sets their mood for high school and so far I am loving giving my students an opportunity to make it fun.

Third Year, Third Classroom

So in the 3 years I have been teaching, I have now had 3 different classrooms. I've gotten good at the moving thing. It also helps cut down on letting things accumulate as I either have to move it or can trash it.

I have been blessed with unusually large classrooms for the last two years and while last year it was a struggle getting my students to stay on the correct side, this year most of my students are on the computers all period so it's not so bad.

I know I always go searching for ideas of classroom layouts and decorations so I thought I would share what I've done in this new classroom.

View from my desk of my classroom.

I made the pennant banner over the summer with some leftover fabric I've had for years. It took forever to make but definitely adds a little touch of "home" to my classroom.

I have 3 doors to my classroom. The building used to be a hospital and when they took out walls to patient rooms to make our classrooms they didn't take out the doors. So having extra doors to the class are a temptation to my students so I've had to block the 2 we don't use. This one became my student information center. I have the class rules posted, the lunch menu, throughout the year this is where I post flyers about things happening in school. Our doors are made of wood so I just staple all of these things up. On the table I have white boards, markers, pencils, and pens. As well as one of the pencil sharpeners and some scratch paper and formula charts in the trays.

This is the other door that I must block. I laminated some of the things my students have given my throughout the year and put others on this maroon bulletin board my mom made me. My husband made me that wonderful name plate for Christmas. I am amazed by his talents! My students also can't believe he actually made it, they think he lied to me and bought it off the internet. Haha!

As you can see the pennant banner goes all the way down the length of the room. This is the area behind my desk. I was lucky enough to have this metal closet as well as a coat closet in my new room! My storage nightmare from last year was fixed! I got the posters here from Sarah at Math Equals Love. (If you haven't read her blog you should! There are a lot of good things on it!)

This is my supply bookshelf. All the markers, scissors, glue, and textbooks can be found here. We don't use them as much this year as last but the students know where to go to get supplies.

My desk area. I use the table to have small group pull out sessions during my computer class. On the other side of my desk is the table with 5 crates where my students leave their notebooks and folders. If they take them home, they'll be left on the bus, forgotten, taken to the park and left, so on and so forth. Since our school doesn't allow backpacks for safety reasons, we find it easier just to have the students store their work in class.

I have 15 computers in my classroom. Some may think this as a blessing, but the majority of our curriculum is online for credit recovery. However, I have more than 15 students scheduled in most classes and on any given day I might have 1-3 computers not working properly. I also only "direct teach" 1 block of true freshmen who have never been in high school but age wise are still behind (most of them were held back at some point in their school career and were too old to repeat 8th grade). 

Here are some problem solving strategies that I got from Sarah as well. 

I have 3 whiteboards in my giant classroom, but I only have power on two walls which happens to be the two that 2 of the whiteboards are on. That being said, I have to block my whiteboards with computers. I'm not losing much because the teacher before me had used them as bulletin boards so there is tape residue all over them making them impossible to write on anyways. I have turned this whiteboard into my word wall. I typed up and printed all the words that were common to Algebra, Math Models, and Geometry and will review one each day in each class and then put it on the board.

The little blue square is my graduate board. When a student finishes all of their classwork and are test complete they will get a special star on the graduate board. It's pretty common for Math Models to be their last class they need to graduate so my hope is that this will motivate others to finish and graduate as well!

My awesome magnetic graph board! I put my objectives up there and teach off of here. 

I used the calendar numbers from the teacher store and stapled them to a shoe caddy to make my calculator station. I have since assigned each student a number and they take their calculator when they enter class and we don't leave until each one is put away. I have also started storing a pencil in each pocket. This seems to have the least pencils go missing. I might only have to refill 5 a week now instead of like 20 a week.

During PD before school started, the principals told us we had to keep our doors locked and closed at all times so I put these posters on the back. Each time a student opens the door, my hope it that they'll think of something positive.I also took this from Sarah. Each week we go over how we can take one of these negative thoughts (in gray) and think more positively (the corresponding poster in color). 

Having the schedule in a pocket chart is helpful because on Wednesday's we have a different schedule to include a 20 minute Activity Period between 4th and 5th. I have a student just switch out the times 1st period on Wednesday.

This is the view of my class from the door. As you can see I have 4 circle tables that I used for my direct instruction time, but they didn't end up lasting long. It was really hard to keep already really unmotivated and distracted kids on task when they could easily look at each other and be readily tempted to talk to each other. I found a teacher who had too many desks in her classroom and traded out by tables for desks.

The outside of my classroom door.

The outside of one of my other 2 doors. I liked this quote because many times my students have bad days and I wanted them to realize that everyday is a new day...no matter what!!

This has since been written on and ripped down by some students passing in the hall :(

Our students get course completions with every half credit they finish and so when this happens I write their name on a star and staple it on this board in the hall. It is November and I have 8 stars now, some with more than 1 course.

We are required to post our class schedule outside our rooms. I decided to print them big and make a bulletin board out of it. I bought a twin size flat sheet at Walmart for like $4.50, folded it in half, and stapled it on the wall. It's at eye level up to the ceiling and surprisingly the border and  hasn't been torn down!

This isn't my creation but one of my fellow math teachers decorated the outside of one of her doors. Her and her friend actually wrote this out by hand!

Thanks for reading!

DIY: Desk to Coffee Bar

So when Andrew moved into his old duplex, the previous owners left him this lovely piece of furniture. They used it as an island in their kitchen. 

When we moved into our duplex together, we simply had too many kitchen appliances (thanks to our many generous friends who got us cool things for our wedding!). We have a pretty good sized kitchen for a duplex, but we couldn't fit everything on our counters and still have space to cook. I remembered that this desk was sitting at Andrew's old place and was most likely headed to the dump. It sat in our house in it's original glory for about 2 months and then I decided that it needed to be painted.

I did some research on the internet and I found that chalk paint is really awesome to paint old furniture with. It doesn't require sanding or priming (unless you only want to use one coat of your chalk paint) and it looks good!

I found some recipes to make your own chalk paint, but I knew that I only needed a little so I bought some already made from The Home Depot. I used some old brushes that I already had and bought a plastic tarp for $2.

Chalk Paint   I got the 8 oz jar of Serene for $8.50 and used about half of the jar.

Creme Wax I got the 8 oz jar for $12 and only used about 1/4 of the jar.

The finish on the top had been sanded off at some point and I noticed that when I started painting with the chalk paint that the brown was showing through. I could have done two coats, but I'm cheap and remembered that the tenants before us left two bottles of cream spray paint. So Andrew helped be carry it outside and I used a bottle of spray paint to prime the desk.

 It was pretty warm out that day so this dried in 15 minutes and we carried it back inside to be painted.

It is hard to tell in our awful lighting that we have in the house, but it came out a nice light blue :)

 It only took about 15 minutes for the paint to be dry enough to put the wax on. Honestly, by the time I was done painting, the first side I painted was dry. This stuff dries quick and doesn't smell very strong AT ALL! I did all of the painting in my dining room.

The waxing was fairly easy. I used a microfiber towel and just rubbed it all over the desk.

 Here is the almost, final product! The knobs that were on the desk were just awful (I'm sad I didn't take a picture of them) so I ordered some glass knobs from Amazon and two days later we have this...

... a place to hold our Keurig, bread maker, and bread box! The drawers come in handy to store all of our coffee, soda mixes for our Soda Stream, and candy! 

Not bad for $20 and about an hour and a half of time :)

Classroom Pictures

So I never took pictures of what my classroom looked like at the end of the year (I should have because it changed a lot throughout the year!), but here are some pictures of what my classroom kind of looked like at the beginning of the year.

 My desk area. I actually ended up moving it a couple of times but for the majority of the year it was in this vicinity.

This bulletin board became my "star" board. When my students made an 80 or higher on a test, I would put their names on a star and put it on this board. They really liked it and would compete to get the most stars.

This is a actually a magnetic graph board. It came in handy when we were doing slopes!

My Algebra Wall. I don't remember where I bought the posters but they came from a teacher supply store in a pack. I referenced them many times throughout the year. This wall eventually also became a word wall of sorts.

My second white board and projector screen. I really loved my window- it allowed for us to turn the lights off while we were doing stuff on the projector. As you can see I started the years with tables, which I was so excited about. However, my students didn't quite get that you aren't supposed to talk to your friends, cheat off of them, or do silly things during class and the tables weren't really helping me out to stop that. I found it impossible to separate students who had conflict with each other. They would try to fit like 8 people around one table. I also think that it's best for students to have their own space. So I convinced a teacher to switch out his desks for my tables. The desks had their own issues (like being moved around the room) but they worked MUCH better than the tables. [On a side note: my husband was "helping" me move and decorate and found my giant tub of Tangrams and made this lovely design on one of my tables. He was so proud of it!]

I went with a very colorful theme this year. This bookshelf was my "supply" center. I had supply bins for every table with markers, pencils, scissors, and glue in them. I also had all sorts of colored paper, notebook paper, and graph paper for them to use. When I got my textbooks half way through the school year I added them to this bookshelf as well. Behind the pink curtains to the right is a door that leads to a mechanical closet. I covered it up so that they wouldn't be tempted to break into it.

Another picture of the Supply Shelf. The table by the door has the "turn in" trays, a bin for all work that we did for the week, and in the magazine racks are white boards for students to use. The calendar on the wall was kept up my a student in my 8th period and he would write what we did that day so that we had quick access to see what someone missed while being absent. I would also write upcoming test dates and holidays on there.

Two filing cabinets pushed back to back with a curtain over the sides. I had some inspirational quotes that I had laminated on it, but those got destroyed/stolen throughout the year. I also had to move all the stuff on top of the cabinets because my third period liked to mess with all my stuff.

I'm kind of mad at myself for not remembering to take pictures of my classroom before I took it all down in June. I moved to a new room which is even bigger than this one, has like 4 windows and is in the middle of the school so I won't be alone like I was this last year. Our building is closed for some renovations until the beginning of August so I can't start setting up until then :( 

What A Year!

What a year this has been!

I was inspired by some of my friends to start a blog about my teaching adventures. So, I decided to actually keep up with this blog. We'll see how that goes.

So, I was the Algebra 1 EOC teacher at my school this year. At the beginning of the year I had about 80 students total in 7 periods. Two of my periods were for remediation so they only had 5 students each in them. Now before you get jealous, this meant that in some of my other classes I had 18 students. (Remember I teach at the school where many of our students are the class disrupters-talkers, non-workers, discipline problems) So having 18 of them all together for 45 minutes was a challenge. Many of my students had taken Algebra 1 at least once before, some twice. They have given up on school, have trouble with authority, and just flat out don't think education is important.

The first couple of months were rough with a principal change, many rule changes, and having three teaching positions unfilled (they were temporarily filled with IA's and long term subs). I think that most of us were just barely surviving day-to-day. We were treading water trying to keep our heads above. Most of my class time was not spent teaching math, but dealing with discipline and teaching them some pretty basic social skills. 

However, come January things were much, much better! After some rearranging of classes and other weird events my class sizes shrunk drastically. By the end of the semester my biggest class only had 7 students. I think because the classes were much smaller they got the 1-1 attention and help that many of them are craving. I had way fewer discipline problems and when I did they were to a slightly less degree than the fall. I actually had students tell me that math was fun and my class was their favorite (1 out of 8 is pretty impressive!!)

I was a little bummed out when the EOC test results came back because only 20% of my students passed it. BUT we sure did celebrate those students who passed! I had a couple of them that this was like their 6th time to take it and they finally passed! I made them certificates, gave them stars, and we celebrated. This was one of those moments that make all the terrible, awful days in the fall semester worth it! I made a big deal in all my class periods about my 20% who passed- maybe the few that were close will work hard for it next time. I also made a big deal about the students who passed my class. While some of them didn't pass the EOC, they earned the credit all by themselves and for some of them that was actually a challenge. Can you tell I LOVE when my students can find success?!?

Anywho, I hope to post soon about the coming school year and the challenges that will come with some of the changes we're having. Also, we moved classrooms again to be grouped with our departments instead of being randomly placed throughout the building so I've been working on some new classroom decorations and set-up ideas that I will share.