I have to admit something, I am a addict. I have become addicted to reading teacher blogs. I never knew there were so many teachers out there that put so much time and effort into creating a decorated and themed classroom. After finding all of these blogs my mind is going, duh, why didn't I think of searching for these before. I have truly been overwhelmed with the amount of amazing and clever classroom ideas that other teachers have thought of.
The few classrooms I have been in since I became a teacher have had no theme or decorations past the standard student work, TEKS and objectives posted. So it never dawned on me to treat my classroom like another room I could decorate. And now that it has the possibilities are endless, and I have become addicted.
Don't get me wrong I was a SUPER organized teacher last semester, so much so that when another teacher was running a activity camp for the non-STAR testers in my classroom my students were walking out telling me how "trashed" my room was. By the end of the 4 hours at my assigned station, I was anxious, and I walked back into my room and was stumped. Yes chairs weren't pushed in, computers weren't put back in their place and paper was on the floor, but other than that my room was definitely not trashed. Just made me realize how much my OCD is apparent to my students and how high I hold my standards for a clean room. Sorry, that was a bit off topic back to the scheduled topic.
When pondering over a classroom theme I loved what I saw on other teacher's blogs but it would just not work in my classroom. Most of these classrooms were designed for the elementary age group and my students are not in the frog or pirate theme age group. I teach 6th, 7th and 8th graders in various career electives so I knew my theme couldn't be too specific.
After a lot of shopping, the kind of shopping where you do a lot of driving around, looking and leaving, I finally settled that it would be a color theme. Navy with pops of neon colors. It would match my classroom full of navy modules and chairs but with a more teenish appeal.
I was super lucky in the Target dollar bin and was able to find tons of containers, magazine holders and white boards in neon pink, turquoise, green and yellow.
My intention was that I would get back in the classroom this week and begin putting my room together and have pictures today of projects/progress. But my plans were dashed short today when it became clear that no one was really at my school to provide keys. So in attempt to make this week worthwhile I have been working hard at making matching labels, updating signs and doing prep work. Combine this with rewatching all of the Sons of Anarchy episodes on Netflix, this week hasn't even felt like work.
While I don't have any real projects to share I can share the logo for my classroom I designed that incorporates all of my color themes.
Me and Mr. B are off to watch the new Batman movie, this evening. More classroom updates to come.
The Babbling Box!
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