My Classroom

So, I haven't posted because, well,  I have no good excuse. I would say I have been to busy but I haven't. (no busier than any other Math teacher anyways) I wanted to do a post about my classroom decor. All of these pictures are from the beginning of school pre-students in classroom, so right now looks a bit more lived in than the pictures suggest. I have to shout out to my girl Micayla who helps me out all the time. She's my right hand gal.

 Ok, confession... I HATE desks. I I had my way I would have collaborative table groups every day but my building doesn't have anything but desks so we make do. My desks are almost never in rows except testing days so I will post in the future about some of the desk arrangement. (Note: The black bookcase in the back now lives in an english classroom, I have a tall brown one that will soon get a paint job to better fit in. 

This is the view as you enter my classroom, the blue board is my word wall and has a scattered look of all our vocabulary words for Algebra 1 and 8th grade math. (I need to think of some interesting ways to update my word wall because right now its scattered and I think a little boring)

The front of my room as the students see it. The top of the board is decorated in memes made and scavenged from the web. I saw this idea on Pinterest and my students love them. They will for sure be reappearing in years to come. I will post some close ups once I find the link to give credit where it is due.

So that's my room... or rather, that is what it began as this year... It was a real labor of love as we settled in before my building had air conditioning running in the hottest month of West Texas summer. 

Any thoughts?

First Post... Let's Talk About Middle School

Hey Everyone!
 Welcome to my blog! I am super excited to be joining the amazing community of educators who share their experiences online. Hopefully I can learn along the way and really turn this into something good.

  So the first things first, let me introduce myself. I am a middle school math teacher (as the title suggests). More specifically I teach 8th grade math and Pre-AP Algebra 1 in Texas. I just finished my second year working with the most amazing group of teachers and students and I feel like I am really coming into my own in my classroom. A large part of my first two years has been learning from the teachers who share online. It is my goal to maybe help some other teacher just by sharing what I have been through and what I go through next year.  I will share more about myself through other posts in the future.

  I find most of my blogs through Pinterest and what attracts me most to the things I click on is color but something I notice ( and please please please correct me if I am wrong) is that the majority of those sites are focused on elementary grades. (Observation about 8th graders: they are elementary minded with the hormones and attitudes of high schoolers... they are inbetweeners in every way). I feel like there are very few techniques used in elementary classrooms that cannot be adapted to work in a middle school classroom. The hesitation is that the students will feel that the classroom is "baby-ish" so we cut out the fun activities that students loved as recently at 6th and 7th grade. It seems that we equate rigor with lectures and tons of homework... boring math class from back in the day, with the teacher up front working out problems and the students copying them down (if they are still awake). In my class I focus on creating a place that the students want to be in. I try to do activities that the students want to do (Yes, we have had circle up story time in my math classroom) and I have had a huge increase in the amount of students that tell me that math is their favorite class to come to. I will do whatever I need to do to help my students learn and having fun in class is a start.

  Walking up and down a typical middle school or junior high campus you are more likely to see the same bulletin all year. You will be lucky to see those amazing teachers that make the environment FUN as well as educational. ( I am NOT saying that the environment is what makes a teacher great because a great teacher can teach in a plain white room. None the less, in my opinion is that environment make a HUGE difference).

  So long to sum it up, I am going to be writing about activities to do with middle school students and about a engaging, safe and colorful learning environment (let's all be honest... we live in our classrooms and when they are fun we are happy and when they are drab, well, we aren't). Also, in Texas, we are changing out the TEKS (Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills) so 8th grade got a facelift to look a little more like Algebra 1 and I will be writing about that as well.

That was not short and maybe confusing and cluttered but I'm excited so I will take it!
                                                                                               
                                                                                          Until next post,
                                                                                                        Whitney