Classroom Set-up 2014-2015

When I started blogging, I was only doing teaching blogs. I soon had a problem that I was doing all of these DIY projects that I wanted to share with the world (even if no one actually reads these), but those posts didn't quite fit into my other blog so I just quit writing all together. Today, in honor of me getting a new job and planning how I want to set up my new class, I am re-posting a post I shared on my other blog.

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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 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.

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. I also posted the 4 questions from Capturing Kids Hearts.

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!

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I hope you found this post inspiring in decorating your high school classroom. As you can see, I use bright colors and my students don't seem to mind it! 

Check back for updates on my new classroom!

~Lauren

DIY: Desk to Coffee Bar

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 :)

DIY Reclaimed Wood Headboard

I've been wanting a headboard for a while now. Since Andrew got a circular saw for Christmas and a cordless drill when we moved, I thought we could make one. I had been doing research on Pinterest how to make one and I got some great ideas, but we ended up making this up to fit our own needs. 

We looked for about a month for some free pallets, but they would be gone when we would go to pick one up. One morning when I was looking a Craigslist, I found a gentleman getting rid of some scrap wood. The picture made them look small, but they ended up being 2x6's. I knew that we could still make a headboard out of it, but it would be HEAVY!! 

Supplies:

2x6 boards (or you can use pallets)

3 2x4's for the support in back

2.5" wood screws

Wood Stain and polyurethane

wood putty

foam brush

old cloth for staining

circular saw

drill with a drill bit

sander 

Cost:

$9 for 50 wood screws (we used them all)

$9 for 3---2x4's

$4 wood putty (used 1/8 of it)

$8 wood stain (used 1/2 of it)

$8 polyurethane (barely used any)

$100 multi-tool

$0.50 foam brush

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Total = $138.50/  $24 = project

The wood had at least 3 nails each that we had to take out. I wasn't strong enough so Andrew had to take care of this step. We did this immediately because we had to keep the wood in the backyard and we didn't want Kyrie to step on them and hurt herself. Of course, Kyrie thought she could help too! Every time Andrew took a nail out, she went crazy and thought she would get to play with it. 

We were originally going to do this project on President's Day because Andrew had off from work, but it was super rainy and cold that day so we had wait :(

Once the wood had dried, I laid the pieces out to make sure we had enough to make our headboard. Our boards were either 60" or 42" long. We needed the headboard to be 60" wide to fit our queen bed. We decided that we didn't want all the boards the same length, but decided to do the typical pallet wall look.

I wasn't comfortable using the circular saw, so one day when Andrew got home early from work we got started!

We used a square to make sure our cuts were straight and measured everything like 3 times.

We used the porch as our workspace as it is about a foot from the ground. Andrew did all the cutting and I helped hold the wood steady.

Once all the boards were cut, we went to the 2x4's. We made these be 57" long and cut 3 of them. We then used the left overs to make 2 boards that were 30" long each to use as the base. Andrew wanted to make sure the force was distributed evenly on the floor.

Here they are all lined up ready to be attached. 

We then used the 2x4s to level up the boards on the top and side. We then laid a 57" 2x4 on top of the boards flush with the ends. 

We used a 3/8ths drill bit and pre-drilled 2 holes for each 2x6 board. We did this so that the screws would go in straight and our boards wouldn't move so much when putting the screws in. I don't think this step is 100% necessary,  but it was easy and only took an extra 5 minutes. 

Once we pre-drilled one 2x4 board, we drilled in the 2.5" wood screws. We did the two outsides and then put one down the middle for extra support. We wouldn't have had to do this if we used the same length boards, but we needed to support the middle boards. Also, it is really heavy so all the extra support was good.

We had a couple of boards that needed to be attached together. So, we used some of the scrap wood and attached them. I didn't take a picture of this step because it was dark and the porch light wasn't good. I then forgot to take a picture of the back so when I get a chance to move the bed I'll take a picture. Sorry!

This is what it looked like at the end of the first day. At this point we have put about 1.5 hours of work into the project. 

The next day while Andrew was at work, I tackled the staining. 

I first sanded it down using Andrew's new oscillating multi-tool with a 60 grit sanding pad.

It started raining so I had to move the project to the garage so it wouldn't get wet and I could stain it. 

I laid down my old plastic drop cloth and put the headboard on top. I mentioned before that there were nails in every piece of wood when we received it. I tested the stain on the holes and decided I didn't like the look so I made a quick trip to Home Depot and bought some wood filler. I got the stuff that changed colors (you know like the glue sticks) so that I would know when it was dry.

It took about 3 hours to dry. I'm glad it changed colors, otherwise I probably wouldn't have let it dry enough. I sanded it down real quick and was now ready to stain!

I brushed it off with a microfiber cloth to make sure all the saw dust was gone!

Andrew picked the stain. Minwax  Jacobean. It actually ended up being darker than we both anticipated, so I only did 2 coats of stain with 3 coats on the green boards(I think they were treated?).

I used a foam brush to apply it and then wiped it off with an old undershirt. MAKE SURE TO WEAR GLOVES! It's not necessary to apply, but definitely good when wiping off--this is the messy part. I applied the stain one board at a time about 1/3 of the length before wiping off the excess and moving on. 

Make sure you have good ventilation, because this stain is pretty strong! I let it dry for 9 hours before applying the polyurethane. We used Minwax fast drying satin polyurethane. You can buy the 2-in-1 stuff, but I didn't know how many coats we were going to do with the stain so went the non-quick way. I used another foam brush and did 2 coats. 

We let it dry over night with the garage door slightly cracked. We actually went out of town so it sat in the garage for the weekend and still felt a little sticky when we got back. We decided it wasn't wet and we were done--almost! 

We took it upstairs which was a challenge it's pretty durn heavy! Our screws were too long so we couldn't attach the headboard to the bed frame. We will buy some screws and bolts and drill into the 2x4 supports. 

I hope you like this as much as we do! We are so proud of our work. Our plan is to make a kitchen island with the rest of the scrap wood we acquired so stay tuned for that.

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! 

Easy Beef & Cheese Enchiladas

Growing up it was always a treat when Dad made enchiladas. He didn't make them often, so when I got the chance to pick what we were eating for supper I'd almost always ask for his enchiladas!

I learned his recipe-which is real simple,but time consuming to make. I attempted to make them the long way by frying the tortillas and soaking them in sauce, but became lazy and learned some time saving tricks from my Uncle John.

Usually I make just plain cheese enchiladas, but tonight we added some beef at Andrew's request. Here's what I did:

Brown 1 lb ground beef with a chopped onion and use a packet of taco seasoning to flavor it.

On an oven safe plate (if you don't have one you can use the microwave with a microwave safe plate), place a corn tortilla. I use our lovely Fiesta plates we got from our wedding. 

Start layering with some cheese-enough to cover the tortilla.

A small spoonful of beef. I used less on mine and more on Andrew's.

And a couple of spoonfuls of enchilada sauce. You can use red or green they both taste good and you can choose your spiciness.

Repeat with tortilla, cheese, beef, and sauce. We make them with 4 layers, but you could certainly do more or less depending on how much you eat.

Put them in the oven at 350 for about 8 minutes or until the cheese is melted. If you use the microwave put it in for 1 minute/layer on high. (Ex: 4 layers=4 minutes)

When you serve it, the plates WILL BE HOT so use caution. Garnish with some green onions and cilantro. You can add some salsa if you'd like.

It's that easy and pretty tasty. Adding the beef was good, but personally I prefer the plain cheese enchiladas.

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef

1 packet taco seasoning 

~ 20 corn tortillas

~ 2 cups shredded cheese (we use Mexican Blend but use your favorite)

1 large can enchilada sauce

1 yellow onion chopped

cilantro or green onions for garnish

1. Brown ground beef in a skillet with onions. Drain and add taco seasoning following the instructions on the packet.

2. Layer tortilla, cheese, beef, and sauce-use as much or as little as you want.

3. Repeat with desired amount of layers. We usually eat 4 and when I was a kid I would only eat 2.

4. Put in oven for 8 minutes at 350 degrees. {You can also use the microwave if you don't want to use your oven or don't have one. When using the microwave heat for 1 min/layer. Ex. 3 layers=3 minutes} THE PLATES WILL BE HOT! Use oven mitts and be careful of where you set the plate down. 

5. Garnish with green onions, cilantro, or salsa and ENJOY! 

I hope you enjoy this family favorite as much as we do!