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I don’t know about you guys, but I’m not very good at keeping up with bulletin boards. I remember walking through the elementary education floor at college and looking at all of the fabulous bulletin boards. I think it’s awesome and crazy that they had to create bulletin boards for a grade. We never got to do anything that fun for upper grades. I would like to blame my professors for my lack of bulletin board updates, but I really need to own it. I just don’t have the desire to change my bulletin boards with every unit. I have a pretty decent excuse, though. My bulletin boards are HUGE and I have TWO right next to each other. For the past two or three years, I have just had butcher paper up for a background. Like I said, I’m not interested in putting up new butcher paper every year. The problem with butcher paper is that it fades. The original butcher paper was purple and green. They slowly turned into shades of mauve and olive. They didn’t look good. If I’m going to leave the same bulletin boards up all year, they should probably look good.
In an attempt to preserve the color long term, I decided to use some cheap fabric from Hobby Lobby as a background instead. It looks nicer and I’m pretty sure the color will last a lot longer. My friend Gina from gina-of-all-trades set up a day to go to my classroom before school started so that we could do a quick bulletin board overhaul before the kiddos came.
Here is a shot of the mauve side before we made some changes.
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On my bulletin board you will find various pictures of the students, a lanyard, some thank you notes/cards, a paper chain to make the two days left of school (from last year), some newspaper articles, and various other articles of awesomeness. My hope is that while the students are looking at pictures of their peers that they might just happen to read something education. It also makes them feel important to see their picture on the bulletin board.
Here is the after picture of the same bulletin board.
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I know it’s a little patchy right now, but I hope to fill it up in time. I like the road themed signs. I think it catches the attention of the students since most of them really want to be driving. I didn’t put up some of the items from the previous board. I’m trying to consolidate and make room for more pictures and newspaper articles.
Here is the board behind my desk. I’m sorry there isn’t a before picture. I just really hated the color and wasn’t feeling much like documenting the hideousness of it. It’s much better now. I use this board for personal items or things that I like. It helps me to feel better when I’m feeling down and it helps the students to see what is important to me.
I know it’s pretty bare right now, but I have some plans for the blank spots. I’m pretty happy with the progress. The colors are so much better!
I’d be interested in knowing what you all do with your high school bulletin boards. Do you have one board that you leave up or do you change them?
We always struggled with the main bathroom in the house. There were two red heat lamps that could be turned on with the fan that caused the little fairies eyes to glow in the wallpaper. Creepy. We coped with it and just didn’t use the red lights. That didn’t get rid of the fairies though. Also, the vanity top was long with one sink bowl in the middle…it was blue with white swirls. A few years ago we stripped the wallpaper and found a velvety wallpaper under that. What a mess. We were lucky that there was ceramic wall tile up to about the four foot mark so we were dealing with less than half the wall space. Anyway, we got the wallpaper off, spackled, and painted a khaki color. We went for a beach theme and found a stipple roller and used a lighter tan over top. We thought it looked alright at the time. We also thought the ceiling would be cool if it had a sky/cloud thing going on. That was just a bad idea all around because we painted it blue and then had clouds painted on that did not look like clouds. Then we painted the blue over the bad clouds. It sat that way for several years.
I had always wanted a two bowl sink in there since Randy and Madi shared that bathroom. I also did not like the blue and white swirled vanity. Last summer we found a white two bowl vanity on freecycle with the faucets included. We went and picked it up and then it sat in the garage for a couple of months. A friend was able to come over and we installed the new-to-us vanity and got all of the plumbing hooked up. So now we got rid of the blue sink but still had the sand walls and blue ceiling. Baby steps, right?
Earlier this spring, maybe March, I bought a new ceiling fan and had arranged for a friend to install it for me. That worked well and got rid of those red heat lamps. The only problem with that fan now is that it pushes out so much heat that we don’t run it. It has to be rewired: another project for another time. We also had to sand down the lighter tan paint that we used for a sandy texture before we could paint the new color or the texture paint would show through. I pulled out my Kirby vacuum sander attachment and Mindy and I took turns sanding. Once that was complete she taped the trim and tile and I started priming the ceiling and walls. It took four coats of primer to cover the blue. Four coats! The walls just took a couple because we sanded them pretty well and the color was lighter. We purchased a new khaki paint color for the walls and got a couple of coats on there as well as white for the ceiling. The bathroom was looking pretty decent by now.
Now it was time to accessorize. We took a wall tile to Target to match up the blue swirl in the tile with a shower curtain. We got this really pretty shower curtain that had a gradient blue that matched perfectly. We found a couple of nice floor mats as well at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. We accessorized the vanity with a bowl and some votives.
We finished the bathroom up while Madi was in Africa. We were quite busy when she was gone! We are pleased with the bathroom now. No more glowing fairy eyes is a huge improvement.
I’ve been thinking about what I still need to do to prepare for my future students. I need to go through my ninth grade curriculum to make sure I’ve covered everything. I need to finish planning for speech class. I also need to review my plans for journalism. Another thing I need to do is plan my beginning-of-the-year stuff. I love teaching English because I have the opportunity to really get to know the students through class discussion and writing. It takes some time to get to know them, though. Do you remember your freshman year? These kiddos aren’t all that interested in sharing. It can take an entire quarter to get them talking comfortably. I have found that I can get to know them a little better with a beginning of the year questionnaire.
This is what I will be using this year. I used Tiff’s birthday interview from tiffkeetch.blogspot.com as inspiration. Here is a link to the PDF if you’d like to use it too: http://tinyurl.com/c6z93mo. I know I should probably ask them what their favorite book is and if their parents ever read to them when they were little. I do want to know that type of information, but I want to know about them first. I know that asking for a self portrait could seem a little elementary level, but I love seeing what they think they look like. It also gives me some insight on their self-esteem.
I’ve also been putting my school website together and decided that instead of putting up the obligatory teaching philosophy, I could add some personal information that my students might actually read. Don’t get me wrong, I think that my teaching philosophy is important, but I don’t think that my students read it and if they do, I don’t think they really take it to heart. So, in honor of the randomness of facebook and twitter, I give you:
And because I know they’ll ask about my dogs, I’ve added this:
I don’t think that my students need to know everything about me, but I also think that it’s important that they know I’m human.
Those of you who know me, know that Madi, my daughter, recently went on a mission trip to Kenya and Tanzania for 18 days. She went with a group through college. She had a fabulous time, wanted to bring all the kids back with her, and she wants to go back again soon! She moved back home from school on May 4th and then left for her mission trip on May 6th. Close your eyes and visualize a 19 year old female’s bedroom on say, May 5th. Imagine her car as well. Exactly! The day she left, Mindy and I decided that we would do a major While You Were Out to her bedroom and car.
Phase one: Emptying her room. Really there is one word for this phase…WOW! I should also point out here that in January of 2012 she went to England on a literary tour and there were still many remnants from THAT trip. She returned two days before starting the spring semester at college and never truly unpacked. When we were halfway through this phase, we realized we had not taken before pictures. Oh well, we couldn’t go back and do that at this point. This empty phase was not a cleaning phase so we pretty much picked up things and stacked them elsewhere…Mindy’s room, my room, even Madi’s bathroom held her stuff. During phase one we went to Lowe’s to select carpeting and installation. We soon found out that the carpet we selected would take 10-14 business days for delivery to Lowe’s, then several days after that for installation; as Asteroid from the Jetson’s would say: Rut ro. We had to move to plan B: select carpet that is in stock at Lowe’s. There isn’t a wide selection, maybe 15 to 20 rolls in all. And of those there were really just a few that were options for Madi’s room. So, we selected one and placed our order. We realized that the selection was perfect when we brought home the 3”x3” sample: the right color tan and enough flecks to hide future spills and messes. We now had several days to get the room all the way empty and remove the old, nasty, stained, gross carpet. Luckily I mentioned that the tack strip around the perimeter is always a pain because Adam (Lowe’s flooring dept. worker) said they can be reused and to leave it! Praise God! A couple of days later, the room was empty. Phase one was complete.
Phase two: Paint the ceiling and have the carpeting installed. When Madi was a tween, she had a loft bed with a desk underneath to maximize her space. During that time she got those glow-in-the-dark stars that you stick on the ceiling. Well, she must have arranged them in a million different patterns on her ceiling because there was sticky stuff and dirty fingerprints all over the area just above where her loft bed used to be. After all, it was the only part she could reach. I had to scrape off some sticky residue that remained and spackle some areas around her room to prepare for the paint. The next night was paint night and the day after that was carpet installation day! Her ceiling fan blades were removed for painting and therefore washed while they were down. They get so dusty! During these days I also got mini blinds for her window. She had a pull shade that never quite worked. Finally, the ceiling was painted, the mini blinds were installed, and the carpet was installed. The Lowe’s carpet installers even vacuumed! Phase two was complete.
Phase three: Moving back the furniture we wanted to keep (bed, chest of drawers, under-bed drawer, and nightstand). Part of our goal was to prepare her room for a 20 year old and remove those items that were teenagery. So that meant the stripy mirror and fuchsia hooks had to go as well as the lime green and hot pink IKEA tables. Luckily we know a certain 12 year old girl who took them off our hands =) We purchased a white shelf unit along with purple and tan bins to replace the tables. She still had stuff that needed a home that everyone else didn’t have to look at. We thought the bins were a great way to pull in some color and make it look grown up. In essence, Phase three was complete.
Phase four: This phase was all me. Mindy thought it best to step out of this one. I would organize her stuff on her nightstand, shelving unit, chest, closet, and under-bed drawer. The under-bed drawer was never one to stay together before. The bottom would fall out from the weight of the stuff that Madi shoved in it. While her room was empty, I repaired the drawer with fabulous Gorilla Glue and clamps. That bottom will NEVER fall out again =) So night after night I would bring in bins, boxes, and baskets from other areas of the house and clean them out, stacking, organizing, throwing away items they contained. That gum wrapper may have come from that cute guy at that concert but it went in the trash when I found it! This took a while, maybe four evenings in all. It was coming together very nicely. During this entire time, we didn’t once post on fb that we were doing this. We told a few people but that is it. We didn’t want Madi catching a whiff of this on fb or from any of her friends. I believe all in all I did five loads of laundry and threw away about 50 individual socks that had no match. Everything finally had a home. I was proud to say that phase four was complete.
Phase five: The final touches. Madi took several hundred pictures when she was in England in January and never really posted them on fb. Mindy was in charge of this phase. She selected six pictures that Madi took and touched up using Lightroom. She played with the color and the composition, cropping them just so. She ordered them from a website to have a metallic finish and be mounted on styrene for frameless hanging. I brought a couple other posters that Madi had to The Learning Tree for Skip to laminate and also purchased some 3M poster hangers since duct tape never worked well. We hung her mirror, new hooks, various pictures/posters, as well as the England collage. Her room was looking very nice. Phase five complete.
Phase six: We decided that we needed to clean out her car too since most of that stuff either belonged in her room at home, or would go back to campus in the fall. We emptied her car and I carefully went through her things organizing them as I had the contents of her bedroom. The campus items went into the basement for safekeeping until late August, trash and recycling went to its appropriate location. As I sorted through her things Mindy armed herself with a roll of paper towels and cleaning sprays. She did call on me to use my putty knife to scrape the gunk out of the cup holders. We still have no clue what it was. It was white and waxy. No clue. We washed her car, vacuumed it out, and filled the gas tank.
Welcome home Mads! She absolutely loves her room and her clean car. This type of project will not be happening again.
I should start by saying that To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee is my absolute favorite book of all time forever. I consider myself inexplicably lucky to teach this novel each year.
A couple of summers ago some friends and I went on a vacation to Pensacola. I love a good beach, but I was way more excited about being so close to Monroeville, Alabama. I know that two hours doesn’t seem very close, but being only a couple of hours away from Harper Lee’s home town was not something I wanted to pass up. I asked my friends if they would be willing to go and while they weren’t jumping-up-and-down excited, they consented. I could not wait. I was going to Monroeville. I would walk on the sidewalks and breathe the air of Harper Lee’s home town.
There are some pretty fabulous events in Monroeville. They have a To Kill a Mockingbird play each year. The play wasn’t running while we were there. They also have Rikard’s Mill Historical Park, Hybart House Museum and Cultural Center, Alabama River Museum, Vredenburgh Park, Bethany Baptist Church, and a walking tour. All of that looked amazing. The only problem was that we didn’t have a ton of time and it was somewhere in the 90 degree range. We were all pretty hot and I didn’t want to take advantage of my friends’ kindness. I decided that the place I wanted to go the most was the Old Courthouse Museum.
The courtroom in this courthouse was the model for the courtroom in the film adaptation of To Kill a Mockingbird. I cannot accurately explain to you how unbelievably excited I was to set foot in that courthouse. Harper Lee’s father, A.C. Lee, was a lawyer and I couldn’t help but imagine that I was stepping where he stepped. I know, I’m a dork, but I was loving every second.
The courtroom was on the second floor. For some reason that surprised me. I guess I expected it to be the central part of the building. When we walked in I caught my breath and allowed myself to look at the courtroom through the eyes of Scout, Jem, and Dill.
We were able to walk around the courtroom to get a closer look at each part. It. was. fabulous.
Mr. Gilmer would have been at the table on the left. Atticus and Tom would have been at the table on the right.
The photo on the right seemed to be the place where the jury would have been. There also seemed to be a jury box on the other side with better chairs. I’m not sure how that all worked.
The photo on the right is the stove for the entire courtroom. I know those things can really heat up a room, but it sure would have taken a lot to warm up that whole courtroom. The photo on the left is where the court reporter would have been.
In the back you can see the judge’s chair. The witness chair is in front of where the judge sits. I can’t imagine sitting in this chair, knowing that the judge is watching me from behind, being surrounded by the jury, and then facing a huge, two-story courtroom. Oh, and I love the spittoon.
The courtroom has two balconies: one on each side. This is the balcony where the African American community sat. This is also the view Jem, Scout, and Dill would have had of the trial.
I cannot tell you how unbelievably exciting it was to be in this courtroom. It has definitely helped me to create a more realistic image for my students when we are reading. I know that it’s not easy to drop everything and make plans to visit Monroeville, but if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend it; especially if you teach (or just love) To Kill a Mockingbird.
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