School has begun!

The last month seems like it has FLOWN by -- and the last two weeks have been CRAZY!

I now realize I didn't include in the last post that Adam is now an Algebra I teacher at Bryan Adams High School in the Dallas Independent School District!  He's excited to return to his home district, and to be at the neighborhood school - complete with 6-minute commute!

Adam is finally in the classroom (this has been the first week with students), and today is his first day of Algebra content (Monday through Wednesday were spent on general policies and procedures, and information on culture changes in the school as - new this year - a Leadership Academy).  It's been a whirlwind...

I helped Adam to decorate his room, which has been chaotic but fun.  :-)

Of course, we went with a nautical theme.  Adam also wanted to make the room feel more comfortable and home-like... less institutional.  These goals helped me to create a good vision for what I wanted to do.  I thought you might like to see the end result!  (Click on any pictures to see larger versions.)

Here are some panoramic shots of the room.  The first is from the back, far corner of the room (white board and green chalk board are on the front wall).  The second is from the opposite front corner of the room.

The ceiling tiles were to be installed last night (I assume they were)...  The school was under construction across the summer, and crews are still wrapping up some projects.

Here are some specific shots...


Adam at his desk.  Door into the classroom on the left.  Student computer on the left side of the desk.

Adam at his desk :-)

Bulletin board between the door and Adam says "SAILING ADVENTURES", and now has pictures from our BVI and Tahiti trips.

At the front of the room he has a table with a lamp and a wax scent diffuser which looks like a nautical lantern.  He teaches primarily on this front wall.  Note the plant in the corner... more efforts to make the room feel homey.

Adam has his students arranged in tables of four.

Ignore the diaper bag and toddler snacks... ;-)

Each table (foursome of desks) has a rug.  There are six four-desk tables, and - because of a larger class - one twosome at the back, though he thinks this may not be used after all.  At this point his largest class has 26 students, but - again - he thinks this one may dwindle down to 24.

The classroom is actually a pretty nice size, and there's good space between the tables.

Adam is using his (great!) windows (which overlook the tennis courts and running track/football practice field - nice!) as his "Wall of Pane" - which he'll use to lead hands-on learning about plotting on graphs (X- and Y-axis, etc.).  Each of six window panes is divided in half to create the graph.

Curtains hung to add to the homey feel.

He has divided the white board at the back of the room into three sections for further group work space.  (Note another plant here...)

At the far end of the white board at the back, the end closest to the door, is the university bulletin board I created.  Teachers are asked to display information about their alma mater (go Ponies!), as well as the university for which their Alliance is named.  The Freshman class is divided into four Alliances to create familiar groups to which they belong from day one.  Each Alliance is named for a top-tier, out-of-Texas university.  Adam's Alliance, which is the STEM Alliance, is the University of Chicago - so I included parallel information for UChicago as well.

Since all this has been done, a few more additions:

• As I mentioned, there are now pictures from the BVI and Tahiti on the "SAILING ADVENTURES" bulletin board next to the door.
• The big green space on the wall behind Adam's desk was painted by a previous teacher in this classroom.  Adam will use this as a vocabulary/word wall - he'll have students arrange vocab words on the wall, to group them by relationship, etc.  Since the pics were taken, I created a banner of colored burlap pieces cut into swallow-tail-shaped flags, one letter per flag, that says "MATH DESCRIBES THE WORLD".
• I've also created - and need to hang - a "WALL OF PANE" sign for the window wall.

... Otherwise, I think we're done!  Whew!

In any case, prepping for school to start has swallowed up our lives for the last couple of weeks.  I'm glad to be done with the classroom prep, and Adam's excited to dive into the content of his course.

Here we go, into the next big adventure!  :-)