My Spanish Classroom

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We have already been in school for a month, but I was putting this post off until I could take better pictures of my salón. That hasn’t happened, like many things on my to-do list… ah, the life of a teacher and mother.

I am teaching every period this year, with no planning period, and I’m trying to be as organized as possible to deal with paperwork and keep things in their place. I moved rooms, as well as taking on some history blocks, so I was going for a streamlined look that would be calming for me and for my students. My room is tiny, but I love it. Here’s the grand tour:

Update: I couldn’t get decent lighting for better pictures, but this year (2016) I covered all my days of the week, alphabet, numbers, etc., posters. I have so little space and like a clean look, so they had to go to make room for my high-frequency verbs. Not as cute, but definitely more useful.

I tried for a maps, chalkboard and burlap theme with lots of blue and green.

I had the students write their names on popsicle sticks for randomly selecting students to call on, or to quickly create groups. These are just tin cans covered with maps. I have them write both their real names and their Spanish names to help me learn both.

This is a shoe organizer from IKEA that I’m using for flashcards, game cards, and other games that don’t store well in a hanging file.

Another update: now that my classroom is proficiency-based and comprehensible-input driven (and I’m only teaching Spanish), it was time for a bulletin board update.

This is one of my favorites. I play LOTS of games– bingo, board games, etc. These are magnets from IKEA that I fill with bingo chips and dice. If I have a group that finishes early, or everyone playing games, I just grab a tin for each group and it makes for easy clean-up too.

Storing scissors, glue, and extra pencils in these drawers has also been great. I just pull out the entire drawer and set it in the middle of the table. I used to store all my game chips together, scissors together, etc., and spent way too much time passing out materials. Again, thank you Pinterest!

My quotes aren’t in Spanish, but I do have the printable available if you like them! You can click on them at the end of the post.

I liked this quote I found in an article at CiRCE . It comes from a Latin quote: Fortiter fideliter forsan feliciter, and I wanted to remind my students in our results-oriented culture that their attitude, hard work, and habits are more important than just the outcome. And, hey– I need to see this everyday.

This is another Pinterest find that has been GREAT. The tabs are numbered 1-31 and whenever I hand work out, I drop any leftover into the file that goes with the day of the month. If any students are absent, they can quickly find the work by looking for the day they missed. At the end of the month, I empty them and file them wherever they should be. I can’t tell you how many times this has already been a lifesaver!