Home Sweet Classroom

HGTV is so popular because all of us secretly want to know what the inside of other people's homes look like.  One of my favorite things about visiting a friend's home for the first time is getting the "house tour" and soaking up their decor, storage, furniture, and homemaking.

Confession? Teachers l.o.v.e. doing the same thing in other teachers' classrooms.  Even when I stop in to my coworkers' rooms for something, I'm saying "uh huh, uh huh," all while looking around at their new art, posters, organization, desk arrangement, etc.  And visiting a new school?  I feel like a tourist craning my neck as I walk down the hall and peek inside rooms along the way.  (P.S. read my note at the bottom of the post- feel free to leave a link to pics of your classroom in the comments!)

So in the spirit of a tour, I thought I'd show you around my classroom all set up for the 2016-2017 school year!  (Note, these pictures were actually taken last week...students have since invaded and as you can imagine it is a little fuller and lot less neat.)

This is my 5th year in 5th grade, and my 5th year in the same classroom (alleluia!- At my last job I moved in and out of spaces four different times in three years!)  
If you are curious to see the progression of this room, you can check out these posts:
The "Before" and The "After" (Fall 2012)
Fall 2013
Fall 2014
and apparently I missed my 2015 post :)

This year I ditched the owl theme and started fresh with a colored pencil theme!  A little less cutesy, and I was ready for a change.

 I had already decided on the pencil theme when a teacher friend asked if I would like to take these giant pencils off her hands.  They were retail store props and she was ready to pass them on.  I super excitedly laid down the seats in my car and hauled them away- note that they were all the way in the back of my trunk and the tips touched the front windshield- they are giant!  And one of them is a Ticonderoga, which is only the absolute best pencil in the world.

My cozy little corner, complete with all the heavenly helpers who have my back throughout the day.

Our closets and word wall, which will be added to throughout the year.

Organization center- mailboxes, assignment board, objectives, and calendar.

Books, books, and more books.

I moved and rearranged our faith corner and I love it!  It is much more visible and I have room to display featured books for different Saints and seasons.

Our school wide Catholic Assignment Notebooks just happen to match my theme for the year!  (I was a little too excited about this.)

Cute new birthday chart!

And new privilege system chart.  It is laminated and is now labeled with privileges the kids have the opportunity to earn (or lose) throughout the day, like using the laptops, earning Saint cards, etc.

 Year five seemed to be the year a lot of posters fell apart, so I've got some fresh routine reminders up on the wall.

 Cute welcoming door.

The coveted 5th grade lockers with cute little pencil name magnets. :)

Jobs and responsibilities organized.

And St. Maximilian Kolbe watching over us all.

There you have it.  Teachers of all kinds, don't you love classroom tours?  If you have a blog or other social media platform, I'd love for you to share pictures of your school classrooms, CCD rooms, or homeschool spaces.  Feel free to leave your links in the comments below.  I can't wait to see them!