New Year, New Classroom

The school year has begun!  Just about everyone in my school was moved to a new classroom for this year, which lead to a crazy amount of boxes, desks, and other items being shuffled throughout the entire school.  The move was sad for me because I have spent the last 7 years (my entire teaching career) in my lovely little Room 212 classroom!  It was definitely my home away from home and we've been through A LOT together (imagine me tearing up as I type this...partly from nostalgia, partly from exhaustion of just completing my first week back).  But, in an attempt to make my new room feel like 'home', I spent a few days this summer unpacking boxes and adding some 'pizazz' to the blank, boring walls. 

I started setting up my desk area first. I like to have my desk in the back of the classroom in a little 'nook' of sorts.  I purchased the bulletin board for $3 at Goodwill and used a fun patterned wrapping paper as the background.  To secure it to the wall I used Command repositionable Velcro strips. The pink cubes on the shelf were $1 at Christmas Tree Shops.
 

One of the front bulletin boards was also covered in the fun plaid wrapping paper!

I made the 'welcome' banner out of red, white, and blue fabrics as an homage to the fact that I teach U.S. History!

One side of the room is devoted to art and images relating to whatever unit we are studying at the time. Our first unit is Colonial/Revolutionary America so you can see a map of the 13 colonies, portrait of Paul Revere, and a poster of various Native American cultures.

All of the contents of the classroom came from those boxes in the back of the room.  Once they were all unpacked, the back wall was transformed into the 'writing center' where I have resources for students who are researching and writing papers and essays.
 

This side of the room has the classroom resources (pencil sharpener, paper, colored pencils, etc.), our Social Studies library, and portraits of all 43 Presidents (Obama is in the 44th presidency but we've only have 43 men serve as President, FYI...Grover Cleveland served two non-consecutive terms).

And there you have it...how I've tried to make my classroom a warm and welcoming place to be!