Made4Math – A new school year/classroom

This is my first “Made 4 Math Monday” post of the year, and it is probably one that I would be most proud of and is my biggest achievement. It is my Classroom, ready to rock and roll for learner tomorrow, Monday, 11 August 2014!

Here is what greets them as they walk in the door to my classroom. I will be standing outside high fiving them and handing them playing card with the number 1 – 8 on it. They will sit at the table (you can barely see the playing cards on each desk arrangement) with their number and then they will fill out a form that asks for their name and 3 things interesting about themselves.

 You can see the awesome curtains I made several years ago to hide the ugly contact paper a teacher before me put on the windows, my teacher area in the back of the room, and the desks all ready and waiting for eager learners.

Once they are situated, from left to right across the front of the room they will see this:

   

I did a closeup of the “Wall of Awesome” because there are some pretty funny things on there. Well, they are funny to me. I know the story, and if any learner asks, I tell them the story behind the quote too. Yes, I kind of dig Star Wars, and if you notice, I have a large “YET” on my wall on the left of the board. My 3 rules of math are above my board, all tricked out and crafted out. Thank you Meg and Shelli for the inspiration to be all “crafty”. Thank you again Meg for taking my Rules and making posters out of them.

As we continue to the right of the entrance, the learners see:

 

I have my quote of the day and the date all ready to go. I have the YEARS agenda already written out. I have not put my calculators in the handy dandy $5.00 shoe caddy from Ross yet. And some teachers have not picked up their calculators as of yet.

And then I was looking at the board and I realized I did not want to do the “you are here” I did last year, so I channeled my inner craft geek again and made these:

 One for Stats, one for Algebra. They are shiny because the glue is not dry yet, but once they are dry they will be stuck to the board with the two blue magnets sitting there.

And finally, because of this post from Jared Derksen I made a Pronoun Swear Jar. I will ask for $.25 each time a pronoun is used in class discussion. I figure the money can go towards AP Exams or an AP party at the end of the year, but either way it will go back to the learners. Nothing major, but here are pics:

 

There is my classroom. I will post about the first day activities tomorrow. I will NOT be going over the syllabus, but I DO have activities all planned out. Learning activities. My learners will be working from day one. No downtime.

I hope your first day of class goes well too!