As a high school ELA teacher, I think environment is SO important! I spent several looong days this summer painting my classroom and making it feel as warm and inviting as possible. I already noticing myself feeling calmer when I walk into the room. I personalized my desk corner with a gallery wall of art, personal pictures, things I enjoy, etc. If your space doesn’t feel safe and inviting, it’s so much harder for students buy-in to the process of learning. I have whiteboards on about 2/3 of my walls (a blessing and a curse as they are not magnetic) and I plan to post anchor charts over the course of the semester as we tackle different types of essays, essay structure, etc. My goal is always to make the space look neat and be selective on the decor I put up. If elementary teachers get to have fun and make their space cute, why can’t we??
4 years ago | 1
The Caffeinated Classroom
Classroom decor is something I’ve seen in my feed lately in a pretty negative light - there seems to be a growing faction of teachers who believe that focusing on decor and classroom setup deters from curriculum and rigor… and unsurprisingly, many of those voices come from the secondary world.
Well, I say POO POO to that! Decorating and making a classroom feel comfortable is absolutely important and ENHANCES CURRICULUM! Especially when it is done mindfully and with purpose!
While I wait to get back into by classroom to get things ready for the upcoming year (construction will *hopefully* be done right before school starts), I’ve been looking back through some of my classroom setup videos from the past few years.
This one documents the process I went through planning some of the decor and bulletin boards in my classroom a couple years ago - link in bio to watch.
What sorts of purposeful decor do you have in your classroom?
4 years ago | [YT] | 3