My Dream Classroom

It's Tuesday! Another Tell-All Tuesday! Yay!

This week's topic is

My dream classroom?! 

For starters, it would be about twice the size of my current classroom. Since I teach special education I have a much smaller class size than a general education class. So I have a much smaller classroom. And it sucks. There's nowhere to put anything and we all sit on top of each other. I have no real space to create separate learning areas which really drives me crazy. My students all work on independent centers and I have no way to separate them without them getting distracted by others. The nice thing about my classroom is that it's completely carpeted (floor and walls) and has special lighting all of which reduces the glare and echo so my Deaf and Hard of Hearing students are able to better learn. And I have a SmartBoard (which when I started teaching wasn't that common). Those are things I wouldn't trade!

So yes, a bigger classroom with more storage and work space is a must. Then I want it completely done in a monkey theme. Anyone who knows me knows I have a thing for monkeys.

Picture from The Creative Chalkboard

I have a lot of monkey stuff all over my room to begin with, but there's a lot I can't do because we have a really strict fire marshall who yells at us over everything (including the door stop I use to prop open the door while we're at recess!)

I'd also want to be able to arrange desks in an ideal format for deaf students such as this:

Picture from chancetohear.blogspot.com

Again, having no space in my room doesn't allow for this. :(

I also have an intense need to be organized and clean. I need everything in its place (or at least hidden away lol). Every May I spend a week or so cleaning and reorganizing my cabinets. And every May I bemoan the fact that I have NO storage space!! My closet is filled with crap that I'm not allowed to get rid of but have never used in the 8 years I've been teaching (I mean there's a book on Signing Exact English  {which no one uses anymore} from the 70s- and I can't throw it away!) Ugh. Makes me nuts!

This is one of only 2 cabinets in my room

So in short, my dream classroom would have more space. And the ability to allow me to fully decorate and arrange for my students' needs. :)

Thanks again to My Day in K and Teach Talk Inspire for another great topic! I can't wait to hop around and see what everyone else's dream classroom looks like. I love comments so feel free to leave me some! :)