Social Studies Classroom |

Everyone loves Before & After Pictures, right? So, here we go!

These pictures are just what my room looked like at the very beginning of the year. At the end of this post, I’ll post some pictures of what my room eventually evolved into throughout the year.

And now for some details.

My Desk Area

This table below is to the right of my desk, and where I keep my Master Notebook.

The Student Center

The Studnt Center is located right at the entrance of the classroom, to the left of my door.

The clipboard hanging on the wall is what my school uses for Hall Passes. At the beginning of the year, I kept generic school information on here, but this later became my Data Wall, where I would post student grades anonymously, using their Student IDs.

The green flower was used as decor at a little boutique I used to work at and that went out of business. I designed the letters myself using this template, which you can feel free to grab and edit to your liking:

Here are my inboxes for each period. In addition to the bins, I also use decorative folders. They help keep the papers more tidy and organized, and I can just grab a class folder and take it to my desk. This is also where our shared classroom supplies live — tape, stapler, and 3-hole punch. I also keep the tissues and hand sanitizer here (high schoolers actually use A LOT of hand sanitizer and tissues, so don’t be afraid to put those things on your Materials List at the bgeinning of the year, or even offer Extra Credit for kids who bring stuff like that in), as well as where I collect Bathroom Passes.

These are my two Student Notebooks, which the students have access to at all times.

The first one is the “Make-Up Work Notebook,” which students consult when they are absent. For each week, I type up a page of everything we did on each day, including Bellwork and any notes or activities we did. I also list what materials they need to either get from me, or copy from a friend. The actual worksheets and assignemtns are in the “Absent Bin,” which is also labeled by day.

The second one is the “Extra Creit Notebook,” which holds several Extra Credit opportunities and assignments, so that students can choose the assignment that best suits them. I offer Extra Credit all year, but students can only get a certain amount of Extra Credit points per quarter, and they are excluded from Extra Credit opportunities if they have too many missing assignments or homework, and if they have too many behavior warnings and issues.