My Classroom: Set-Up & Organization

As many of you know I started my first "official" year of teaching this year, and I'm super excited about it. So I thought I'd share pictures of my classroom. Obviously it is a work in progress but it's at least a start. I teach high school English. 

Here's my desk arrangement, I don't like rows but this room doesn't allow for groupings, this allows for easy movement into groups and accessibility to students. Which is great, plus it is not traditional which works really well for me. 

Another teacher in the building gave me this beautiful couch for the room, I'm hoping to find a slip cover on sale somewhere for it, the kids love it though.  I of course have a gigantic Little Mermaid poster, she's my fav. I also got these two fancy desks for free from another teacher who switched schools and didn't want to take them. They are really nice!

Our school is really far out from any food places so I have mini-kitchen in my classroom, the students call it my "mini-bar." I love coffee! Plus I use the cabinets to store all my food, mostly soup and oatmeal. haha.

My Mom and I have been collecting books for as long as I can remember, roughly 5 years. So far there is about 400 books on this wall, I let students check them out and so far I have only lost one. They usually bring them back when I explain that my Mom and I used our money to buy them and not the school. They all have my name on them too. It's a lot of books:

For their projects they can choose to paint ceiling tiles, a box of them is $30.00 at Lowe's so I just buy a box and will switch em around at the end of the year and keep the really cool ones up.

I spray painted some random scrap 2"x4"s that were in my shed with gold and chalkboard paint so I could make some labels for my room. I try to be crafty, I have a big chalkboard "M" also. 

Teacher corner!

I'm starting a gallery wall. Theme: Little Mermaid and Colorado paintings. hehehehe.

Here's my angle from the teacher desk!

I have plans to use the school color (maroon, grey, white) grey to paint stripes around the room like those in my office. I think it will look cool and there's enough cabinets that it wouldn't take that much time. Plus it's different and quirky, like me! I tell my students that the reason I teach is because I LOVE it and because I'm too weird for any other job.