CLASSROOM TOUR | Middle School

[Music] [Music] hi everyone and welcome to my classroom my name is Megan and I teach sixth and eighth grade English and history at a middle school in Southern California and this is my home away from home this is my classroom I love being in my classroom I love the feel of it this year I love kind of making it my own and also making it my students and just making it a welcoming and inviting place to learn I thought I'd show you around a little bit today I love watching classroom tour videos I just love seeing how different people use their rooms and how they set things up and how they organize everything so I thought I would show you that today it feels a little bit like you're coming over to my house and I haven't really cleaned up yet my room is not perfectly clean it's never perfectly clean it's never gonna get that way so I figured we might as well just do this video now so excuse some of the mess but welcome to my room let's start right here this is the first thing that students see when they come into my classroom we are room for I have some expectations up that I make sure that we follow on a daily basis and then we have Chromebook procedures as well because we're a one-to-one school and every student has a Chromebook I really love using Chromebooks we just have to make sure that we're using them responsibly I made everything that you see here mostly through lucidpress or just PowerPoint and printed things on cardstock and laminated it and cut it out some of the longer words like expectations in Chromebooks I used a method that I learned from that one happy classroom so I can link her video below if you're interested in making a little bit longer signs in your classroom and then I have this table right here that was really really ugly and so I just got a tablecloth on Amazon to put over it and kind of make it match my room a little bit more and this is just where I put things that were kind of in the middle of so whenever I make copies and worksheets I just set them out right here it's always a little bit of a mess students generally turn things in here they just turned in the winter gram assignments so I need to grade these and figure out what I'm gonna do with them so this is our little Welcome station above that we have our schedule which is quite complicated I won't even bore you with that this is my door and you'll definitely be able to tell that I am Hamilton obsessed I am a huge Hamill fan I saw it at the Pantages a couple months ago and I've been listening to the soundtrack since like the second that it came out even before it came out just when lin-manuel Miranda performed at the White House so I have a bunch of Hamilton quotes and things like this I will link below so that you can also get them if you are interested I also have a bulletin board right here this is where I have my calendar and just kind of a bright cheery station it's actually not just number anymore I need to change that for the new year a lot of times I have my students do that these posters are about blending quotes into your writing and I will also link where I got these from I think I'm actually gonna switch it up though I have these ready to go these are from reading like a historian from the Stanford history education group what's website which is one of my favorite resources of all time and I think I'm gonna put these up next because even in my English classes we need to have these skills of close reading and sourcing and contextualizing cross-checking or corroborating and then even just knowing what history is so I will use these with both my history and English classes I keep some of our like warm-up activities and things in here just in these binders and then these are our history textbooks they didn't put them away very neatly but we use history alive for my sixth-grade history students this is where I keep my students daily information the top section is what they're gonna have for homework and sometimes I'm not quite sure until I start teaching like if there's something that we need to finish so on a day like today it's Tuesday but the first day of the week for us I'm not quite sure what they're gonna have for homework yet so I'll fill that in as we go but I teach history six English six and English eight and I just have to keep track of like even the general topic that we're as well so I always have our general topic posted Oh first period is famous one of our pictures got retweeted by flow Cabul Aries so first periods gonna do a different lesson today we're gonna do the shout out contest this is our daily schedule and we have a rotating schedule I don't really know why they've had it for like twenty years but you can look up research on rotating schedules if you're interested so it changes every day it's different every day of the week and then the times actually change a little bit too cuz on Tuesdays and Thursdays we get out early and Monday Wednesday Friday are a little bit longer days and so these are all on magnets and then tomorrow when I go to switch it then I just have this set of times and then I'll just put those up so rather than rewriting it every day that's made it easier for me every week we do community circles in my class and these are our expectations this has really become a part of our school culture so I have a board for that I think I got this little sign at Target it lights up it's not lit up right now and I like to put kid president quotes everywhere that I can this little frame is from Ikea I think and I just have an old bookshelf with books the students can check out here I need to organize that or have my TA organize it a little bit let's turn and get a little view of the room so far this is my classroom from the side I have three long table setups here in this classroom that was just the best way to fit everything and I actually really like how it works out like in practice as well so if you look at it from the front of the room it's more like this and students are usually in groups of four so this is Group one and I just have it labeled with this supply box so if they forget you know what their group number is they can just look at their supply box so you've got a shoulder partner and you've got a face partner or you can work in groups of four and in these boxes I just provide like markers and pens and pens and colored pencils and scissors and anything that a student might need I like to just keep those things at their desks so that they don't have to get up and go get them I find that it just you know saves us a lot of time to do things that way and that's one of those things I just don't love dealing with like if a student forgets a pencil just take one of mine I don't even want to talk about you forgetting your pencil just take one I've got a little bit of storage back here of course I've got Hamilton posters here and people always ask about these but I just had a calendar those a Hamilton calendar and then after a month was over I would just cut off the top and use it as a poster in my classroom and then a few more in other places I'm really lucky that I have these beautiful windows I've got a ton of natural light in my classroom I love it I've got blinds that I can pull down if I need to but usually I just leave it open I've got another bookshelf over here with all of the English curriculum and they also put that away in a really messy way last time these bookshelves are from Walmart and they're super cheap and like about to fall apart and I don't suggest them but they were only 15 dollars and I needed something at the beginning of the year but hoping to replace them upgrade a little bit another thing that I hate dealing with is Chromebook chargers or when a student doesn't have their Chromebook charged so that's another conversation I just I'm like you know what just go borrow one and deal with it yourself I've got middle schoolers so they have to have some responsibility for themselves I used to have these on all of the desks but I think I'm actually gonna switch these out these were labeling they're group numbers but you know their supply boxes already do that so I think I'm going to like switch these out and maybe make them say something else maybe have like discussion norms or something on those so trying to decide what to do with those I also got those bins from Ikea I can't remember where I got these pink baskets but they are really cute these are like the funniest thing that I just use all the time these are little like name card holders that you would use it like a wedding to show where people sit and so I put all kinds of stuff in here when we do different stations at the beginning of the era had students put their nametags and those for the first couple weeks so that I could get to know them and see their name tag I can link those below these are little bracelets that I got from Target and there are six different colors and so as students come in they can each just grab a bracelet and then that automatically groups them and so sometimes I use those when we're doing group projects or group work this is another one of my favorite things in my classroom I love these little all about me flags that my students made I just printed them on different colored paper and we took pictures with my Polaroid camera at the beginning of the it's a little difficult to see their faces but that's probably good and then students were able to just write a little bit about themselves we got to know each other a little bit and then we were able to kind of decorate the classroom with what we made so I love those and I'll just give you another like overall view from the back here I spend a lot of time in the back actually with you know my students or maybe watching something on the screen or talking to each other and then I hang out back here and just kind of facilitate so if we continue this way oh this is one of my favorite bulletin boards actually since we do so much with Chromebooks I just had to create a little tech support team for each class period because the students always know so much more than I do and I want to be available to answer questions about like content or the assignment and I was always getting questions about tech stuff in Chromebooks stuff and I never even know the answer so these kids applied for the job and that is their job I don't really have classroom jobs for every single student cuz I have like 160 students and it's difficult to keep track of but when they are needed I definitely ask them for help this is one of my favorite posters it lists all of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights I got this from Zen pencils and the way that I structure my sixth-grade ancient history class is we look at it through the lens of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and I think that's a super important thing to teach all students so that's always up in my classroom these I think I've talked about in other vlogs before but I used to keep a lot of my worksheets and stuff in like binders like this this is kind of a mess down here this is how I used to organize things but it's kind of hard to pull those out and flip through and see if there are things that I need to get to quickly I just throw them in here and then I can just look in here and grab whatever I need so this year I've just been doing it that way I have got some books on this top shelf that I need to flip through there's one in particular ah this one the political classroom I need to talk about this book because it's amazing and this is the foundation of a lot of what I do so I'm gonna grab that while I'm at it I need to reorganize that a little bit I've been taking a lot of pictures of my books for my new Instagram account to cool for middle school books in case you're interested I really love this little bulletin board I just think it's really cute I got this part at a party supply store and then this assignment is hieroglyphics that my ancient history students did I probably need to switch that out soon because now we're not doing ancient Egypt anymore but I just like to display work over here and printing things on different colored paper like for different class periods just really brighten things up in my room this is my TA station I do get one TA and so I just give her a very cute little like office area and she has a TA binder and I can link where I got like this format below she's got her own cute little set of pencils and then this I got from like Zulily I think and this is our no-name stamp so it says if you liked it then you should put your name on it and it's got Beyonce so if you forget to pay your name on something you get beyond Sayed and the TA puts it in our no-name file which I will show you in just a second I've been trying to organize our worksheets in here I got too many papers and this is falling apart so I need to reorganize that a little bit better this is my Turnitin station I've always had a Turnitin station because I don't want students handing me like late work I don't know that I'm not gonna lose it so I want them to be responsible for turning it in so these are my policies need to have a first and last name the date and period and I do take late work but it's worth half credit that just makes it simple and usually you know students only turn something in late one or two times and then it sinks in and doesn't really hurt their grade all that much these are my different class periods fifth and sixth is combined so they have a shared folder there these are just from Ikea as well they're little like magazine holders and so they turn things in here and then my ta puts them in alphabetical order for me and puts them back in here which is great I've got some more me Flags these were my eighth-grade version but not everybody finished it so I hadn't put them up yet but instead of using the Polaroid camera for them we did little bit mo jeez I just wanted to try it with bit mo geez so I need to put these up I'll have to do that today they've been sitting here for too long this is this is reminding me okay this is like a messy section of my classroom over here these are some books that I've also been meaning to talk about as we get into Black History Month these are a few of my favorite resources so I had just pulled those out we're also transitioning into being a leader in me school and so we are trying to incorporate the seven Habits it's kind of a slow process but I'm part of the team that's implementing it in training teachers and stuff so I have the seven Habits up and I need to start implementing this more through our community circles I think it's probably a good way to do it and this is just a mess over here I've got some prizes in this little bag over here which is really cute oh I have some tea but this needs to go in my tea station this is just another organizer where I put some things that I don't need right this second but I'm going to got my printer just some papers that I need to deal with over here I'm gonna move those okay this is my tea station I love my tea station I just get water from the kitchen and I can boil it here and I've got a couple different kinds of tea and my little teacups and stuff I'm obsessed with tea I've got more Hamilton over here we've got lin-manuel miranda who you're gonna see even more often in my classroom behind my desk over here I have all of the standards so sixth grade ela standards I didn't realize I was going to be teaching eighth grade actually so I don't have those ones up but they're quite similar and then there are also literacy standards for history and so these are actually on my teachers pay teacher's store if you're interested in just putting them up in this way and they're also editable if you try to get the Common Core State Standards online they're not editable you just like can't do anything with it so I like to keep track of the lessons that we do actually I need to go through and update this badly but I love just like writing in the lessons that meet these standards like lessons that I already do or that we have already done and then that helps me to know which standards I've covered and what I still need to get to I also have this really cute little picture from Jensen that's my baby I gotta have some pictures of him just to brighten my day let's see I've got my schedule here so that I remember like what I'm teaching each day just some school site information no I have to have our schedule everywhere because it's so hard to remember this is one of those little carts from Ikea that like everybody has and I just have a bunch of my junk on it and I have my own little bulletin board over here that says mrs. Forbes and I have kind of a little like Instagram feed of people who are important to me oh this is my motto you can never be overdressed or overeducated these are just some pictures that make me happy let's sit down at my desk first I can't I need a break I've got a Hamilton mug of course oh you know what I hate is my keyboard I need to just buy a new one myself and replace this one this is my computer these are my headphones I get a lot of questions about these there's an after-school program in my classroom after school so these are noise cancelling headphones with kitty ears and their Bluetooth so I use these while they're in here doing their language classes my desk is always kind of a mess it just looks like this pretty much on a daily basis I've always got water I've got my Mariah Carey cup this is here every single day my little pen collection cuz every teacher's got one of those my keys this is my planner it's from purple trail these are really customizable and I just really really like this planner I took it last week so you can see a better example of how I plan I just color code things because as you can probably tell already I love to color code things and this just helps me keep track of all my classes this is my personal Chromebook with everything I love on it we've got mean girls we've got Seinfeld we've got friends we've got the IT Crowd and Hamilton and even Pam clothing and history this is where I put work that needs to be returned so after I grade it and put it in the computer then I put it right here and return that to students I got that at IKEA actually I would love to have another one this is a really good organizer I would like to have it for like cardstock and I just have a pile of things here to go through I'm gonna read this book teach like Finland I just ordered this one separate is never equal I've cut more pens more stickers teachers guides oh this is my lunch bag down here and some corn chips that I've been snacking on this is a little organizer that I made my first year of teaching where I would put my copies for each day of the week I haven't been using as much this year but I like it these are a little conversation sticks that we haven't used as much either this is another one of my mottos be the change that you wish to see in the world and so this is like my reverse desk this is the desk that I can kind of like teach from so I've got one desk on that side on one desk on this side I don't want to show student names but this is my my my like class lists and my amazing clipboard from hipster art teacher she has the most amazing clipboards you've ever seen in your life oh this has been getting popular lately having these really cute karaoke mics in your classroom I just got mine on Amazon there's a bunch of different options but I love that it is like a disco ball on the bottom I always have a bunch of junk over here too oh this is an excellent resource reading like a historian if you teach middle or high school history you need this this is just one of my favorite resources ever and this is definitely one of my favorite sections of my classroom this is what we say every morning good morning eyes up hearts up mind sharp compassion on full-blast I set my coffee and then say okay let's go and that was a tweet by lin-manuel Miranda and we decided to give him some coffee so that he could drink coffee with us I have a few books and cards and stuff right there this is another one of my mottos for my students pay gentle with your face I don't do like slant or any of those other things but I need to see their face to know that they are paying attention I don't care really what the rest of their body is doing but let me see your face let me see your eyeballs sometimes I tell them I need to stare into the depths of your soul to see if you understand and this is our example of what you should look like when you're paying attention with your face that was a joke that I've had like forever oh and this is my students always leave like their backpacks in their lunches and their binders and their Chromebooks and their hoodies and their water bottles and everything in my classroom and it gets really irritating so we did a contest to see if we could have no item left behind and it looks like period two one so they're gonna be getting the donut party I'm gonna try and extend this to the whole year because they really kept each other accountable it's kind of funny here I just have the date this is what we do when we answer questions restate question answer in a complete sentence provide evidence from the text oh oh this is my Turtles all the way down poster I went to see John Green I got that from his tour and then we're back over here where we started here's one other thing that our school all tries to fellow professional courtesy so if you tell your students I need professional courtesy from you they are supposed to put their Chromebook screens at half-mast which means there's halfway closed so they don't have to like shut them down but just kind of set them aside so they're looking at you hands off keyboard headphones out and give the speaker your undivided attention so it's middle school so we don't do a lot of those like chance or claps or whatever we just tell them I need your professional courtesy and this is a little about me poster it actually used to be on my door I forget why I had to move it in here but I got this from donut teacher on teachers pay teacher's and I put this on my Google classroom and like handed it out it back-to-school night but I thought that was really cute and that is my whole classroom this is what it looks like [Music] you it's a little jumbled a little messy but I love being here that's one great thing about my job is that I love where I work I love my space and I enjoy coming to work every day so that is my room thank you so much for going on this tour with me don't forget to Like and subscribe and do all that fun stuff I've got lots of other videos on teaching and middle school and motherhood and life in general so welcome to my channel and I hope you stick around bye [Music]

Channel: too cool for middle school

Views: 266,234

Rating: 4.906333 out of 5

Keywords: ethical fashion, sustainable style, fair trade fashion, baby boy, multicultural, us history, virgin islands, middle school, teaching, teacher, classroom, english, history, english teacher, history teacher, sixth grade, eighth grade, junior high, high school, education, classroom organization, vlogger, mommy vlogger, teacher vlogger, bulletin boards, classroom ideas, goals, teacher goals, mom style

Id: e-wY9VXDBwM

Length: 24min 17sec (1457 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 27 2018