When You Enter This Classroom Door Decoration or Bulletin Board

Every time I walk in the door of my classroom, I see the decorations, and I just get so happy.  I’m sure the newness will wear off soon, but I’m enjoying it for now.

My door says:

When you enter this classroom… You are mathematicians. You are explorers. You are important. You are respected. You are the reason we are here.

I modified the idea from a similar “when you enter this classroom” idea I saw online. I just made it much more mathy.

School starts tomorrow.  Yes, tomorrow.  I don’t even have class lists yet.  I guess I’ll get them in the morning…  I’m excited for the first day.  I’m excited to get to start knowing my students. 

I met several students and parents at open house / meet the teacher night on Tuesday, but there are so many more that I haven’t met.  Plus, most that I did meet didn’t know what math class they would be in, so I didn’t even know if they would be in my class or not.

My school ordered new projectors for the teachers, but they haven’t been installed yet.  So, I’m having to put my beautiful, new (to me) dry erase board to good use for the first of the school year. 

Hopefully they’ll have my projector and Smart Board up and running soon.  Right now, my projector will come on for 20 seconds then shut itself off.

I’m very excited about my class sizes.  I got a peek at the unfinalized rosters today, and my largest class was only 14.  These are like the class sizes of my dreams.  This is a definite pro of working in a small district.

Since my room has been mostly finished for the past few days, I’ve had the opportunity to get to know a lot of the other teachers.  We have 5 returning teachers and 7 new teachers.  (Not to mention a new principal and new secretary.  The superintendent is also new.) 

The other math teacher is also new.  This is his first year of teaching, too, so we’ve been sharing ideas and trying to figure out things together.

Update: I have also used this as a bulletin board.