Skip to Content

2020-2021 High School Math Classroom Decorations

Welcome to a tour of my 2020-2021 high school math classroom decorations! This school year, I taught Algebra 2, Pre-Calculus, and Statistics. Normally, I would post these pictures at the beginning of the school year, but we all know that this past school year got off to a very strange start due to COVID!

I actually didn’t do any decorating at the beginning of the year – I just kept all of my same decorations from the previous year.

Let’s start with a few pictures to give you a feel for the layout of my classroom. Then, I’ll share close-up photos of everything as well as links to download files to create them yourself!

2020-2021 High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here’s the view from the door to my classroom.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Up next, a few different angled views from the podium:

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here are two slightly different angled views from my desk area.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here’s the view from the back corner of my classroom looking towards the front dry erase board.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

And, here are the side walls.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

Finally, here’s the back wall of my classroom.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Now for close-up photos with more details and links! Let’s start at the door and work our way around the classroom since that’s the order I took the photos in!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Above my door, I have pennants for the two universities I have attended. I earned my bachelor’s degree in mathematics and education from The University of Tulsa. I earned my master’s degree in curriculum and instruction from The University of Texas at Arlington.

The pennants (and many of my other decorations) are held up with Stikki Clips – my go-to method for helping attach things to cinderblock walls. I love that they are reusable!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Next to the door, I have two measuring tapes. I plan on using these next year for a scatterplot activity where we compare our heights and our ability to jump. I was hoping to fit it into my Algebra 2 class this year, but we ran out of time.

I ordered extra long measuring tapes from Amazon for super-cheap. In the past, I have always used 60″ measuring tapes with students, but I have found that students have trouble using them to measure their heights since they need to use two of them.

Now, I have a height-measuring station up all year round. This will come in super useful for teaching statistics!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Next to the door is my pi-ling cabinet. Someone called it that on twitter a few months ago, and I have adopted the name for myself. Previously, I have always just called it my “pi filing cabinet.” My parents/sister helped me stencil the numbers on to decorate my first ever classroom.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

On top of my pi-ling cabinet I have a three drawer organizer where I store notebook paper, copy paper, and graph paper for students to grab whenever they need it. Two of my students assembled a giant sonobe origami structure that lives on top of it.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Next to the door, you will find my Math-y Welcome sign. This is one of my favorite things I have ever made for my classroom.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

In the past, I have used the pocket chart hanging below it for cell phones. Due to COVID, I didn’t use it for anything this year.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I have a magnetic coordinate plane from EAI Education. It’s actually four magnets that are assembled to form one single coordinate plane.

I created a set of free, downloadable coordinate plane magnets to decorate it. Because they are magnets, I can easily slide them off the coordinate plane whenever I need to use it for graphing.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Above my large dry erase board, I have a free printable number line poster and a modular origami display of a variety of origami pieces constructed from sonobe units.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

I absolutely adore this colorful little corner of my classroom!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I have also created printable positive and negative infinity signs to hang at the ends of your number line.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

In the corner of my classroom, I have my podium.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

It sits under the 65″ flat screen television that my school replaced my SmartBoard with.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

On my podium, I have my name sign (made with math symbols) and my SOH CAH TOA posters.

This next bulletin board is actually an old coordinate plane chalk board. It had seen better days, so I covered it with black butcher paper. I put colored tape around the edges to serve as a border.

It isn’t perfect, but it looks so much better than it did before I covered it. The good thing about it being an old chalk board is that it’s magnetic!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

The jumbo magnetic unit circle is from EAI Education. My school’s parent/teacher/student organization purchased it for my classroom several years ago as a Christmas present.

I posted several bell schedules around the room to help remind myself and my students of our different schedules. We had a traditional bell schedule for in-person days and a separate bell schedule for Distance Learning Mondays and those additional days we had to pivot to distance learning. Next year, we will be continuing our distance learning Mondays, so that will be interesting!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

My students absolutely love my Math Joke of the Week posters.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I keep the sheet protectors in a binder next to my desk, so I can easily switch out the joke each week. If I forget to switch out the joke, a student usually volunteers to do it for me. The answers are already in the back of the sheet protector so students can flip the sheet protector up to read the answer.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I typed up a set of unit circle magnets to go on my large magnetic unit circle. I’ve also printed off some extra decks of unit circle cards for students to use in the floor next year to construct their own unit circles.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

This agenda board was pretty useless this year. All of my assignments had to be on Google Classroom due to students being quarantined/electing to do all of their learning via distance learning. So, I didn’t end up keeping a running record of what we did each day on the dry erase board.

I need to decide if I want to keep the agenda for next year or if I want to repurpose the board for something else.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here’s my little desk corner. It’s a no-student zone.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

My desk is home to some of my growing origami collection. I still need to blog about this Columbus Cube Tower and Hedgehog Dado Origami projects.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I keep this pink rolling cart near my desk with organization tools that I use frequently – copy sleeves, plastic storage pockets, sheet protectors, etc. I need to redo this cart and reorganize/relabel it for next year.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Behind my desk, I have a bookshelf full of resource books and binders.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

In a normal school year, I use this six drawer organizer as turn-in trays. Since we did so few paper-based assignments this year, I didn’t even label it for the different class periods. It will definitely get used next year, though!

The top of the drawers did make a nice place to keep some of my sonobe origami.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

My bookshelf is a bit messy, but I like having my resources close-at-hand.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

The magazine holders on top have printed resource books that I have bound with my binding machine.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

The bottom shelves mainly hold binders and textbooks. The box on the bottom shelf is my “teacher memory box” where I keep notes from students and other teaching mementos I want to keep.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I also have a mini fridge and microwave in my teacher corner. The three drawer organizer on top of the microwave holds extra copies for each class.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here’s my little computer corner. Nothing too exciting here…

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I use magnets to attach the school map/list of phone extensions to my file cabinet.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

The top of the filing cabinet is home to awards I have received over the years as well as my collection of mini sonobe origami pieces. These are folded with 2.5″ squares left over from cutting down letter-sized colored paper to make 8.5″ squares.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I also keep my paper chopper up here away from students.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

These two filing cabinets hold all of my resources for the courses I teach plus all my puzzles and activities!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I sort my non-course related puzzles and activities alphabetically.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

They are stored in plastic storage pockets. The pockets I use are from 3M, but they have sadly been discontinued.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I use removable file folder labels to label each storage pocket. This makes it super easy to change the labels when I need to! They are super cheap, and they are one of my must-have school supplies. I use them on SO MANY THINGS.

Here’s an example of one of my puzzles in my cabinet. The H Puzzle folder contains the instructions as well as the magnetic pieces for the puzzle.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

My plastic storage pockets close with velcro, but I have seen lots of others that have strings or snaps. As long as they have something to keep them closed, they should work!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Since I usually remember what activities are called (probably a side effect of blogging about every one of them!), the alphabetical filing system works best for me.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

My other file drawers hold files for specific courses.

Close-Up of Black Filing Cabinet in High School Math Classroom.

These drawers are still organized with plastic storage pockets, but I tend to organize these in the order of the course instead of alphabetically.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I want to be able to see all of the resources I have for say, logarithms, in one place without having to remember what I labeled each folder.

I have a computer paper box on top of my counter where I store all of my 11 x 17 cardstock activities.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

They are each labeled with a post-it note. I also store them alphabetically.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

One the side of my cabinet, I have started storing large magnetic pieces like this one from the See and Say Sequence Puzzle that won’t fit in my plastic storage pockets.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I also have an old Amazon box stashed in this area of my classroom to hold large laminated posters and decorations that I am not currently using.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I am so thankful to have a wall of storage cabinets in my classroom. The classroom I had for my first four years of teaching had no built-in storage at all, so I have been grateful for storage ever since!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

These cabinets are the perfect home for my Powers of 2-9 Posters.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

These posters get SO MUCH USE during our units on radicals, exponentials, and logarithms.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I decided to up my organization game this year by adding business card pockets to my cabinets. I like them because I can easily change out the slips of papers that tell what is in each cabinet as I reorganize/get new supplies.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

My tall set of cabinets features my Includes/Excludes Posters.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I have my new straw rocket launchers I wrote a grant for. I still need to blog about these, too!

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I put up a new origami bulletin board this year. The two large origami pieces are mine. All of the others were created by students. I like having a place in my classroom to encourage students to try out something new like origami.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

One of my favorite parts of my classroom is my Puzzle of the Week corner. You can find the Equilateral Triangle Puzzle here. If you want to start your own puzzle of the week, I have a huge collection of free printable puzzles for you to choose from.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I put disc magnets on the back of the puzzle pieces to make them work on my dry erase boards. They are super strong and priced quite reasonably from Amazon.

Above this bulletin board/dry erase board, I have my vintage place value posters I picked up at a thrift store. I remember sitting in math class looking at these exact posters, so I had to buy them when I saw them!

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

Hanging from the ceiling, I have my straw icosahedrons I built several years ago from clear straws and curling ribbon.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Students always beg to make them, but I have never actually made them with students.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I have five large three-drawer organizers that I use to hold supplies for students to use.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

I finally got around to labeling the drawers just before the school year was over.

High School Math Classroom Decorations
High School Math Classroom Decorations

Here is my non-working SmartBoard. Well, the SmartBoard works, but there is no projector hooked up to it. I’m hoping that my school will remove it over the summer. I requested for it to be removed last summer, but it never happened. If they don’t remove it, I guess I will continue taping stuff to it like I did with my Radian Arts and Crafts.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Below the Smartboard, I have a collection of dry erase boards for students to use. I want to get a magnetic wall pocket to put above them to hold erasers for next year.

High School Math Classroom Decorations

And, look at that, we’re back to the door! Thanks for joining me on this tour of my high school math classroom decorations! Hopefully you found an idea or two to take back to your own classroom?

High School Math Classroom Decorations

Want even more decorating ideas? You can check out every free poster I have ever created here.

Previous Year’s Decorations

Want to see what my math classroom decorations have looked like in years past? Here are some links if you want to take a trip down memory lane.

Anas Rehman

Thursday 5th of August 2021

OMG!!! I loved it! In India, our education system doesn't provide like this. I wish I wanted to learn visual maths like this and I really wanted to meet u and teach me all the maths stuff.

Peyton Barlow

Thursday 22nd of July 2021

How do you hang your pocket chart?

Sarah Carter

Monday 26th of July 2021

Command Hooks + Clothesline from the dollar store. My husband carefully weaved the clothesline back and forth to make it look nice. I can't take credit for that part!

Janea West

Saturday 26th of June 2021

Do you sell your plans for your Origami puzzles of the week? I love this idea.

Sarah Carter

Thursday 15th of July 2021

All of my puzzles of the week can be downloaded for free at mathequalslove.net/puzzles/

Comments are closed.