Classroom decorations and signage
Last school year vs this coming school year:
My one room, middle school home ec classroom, last year served both high schoolers and middle schoolers. Each level is considered distinct and separate but the buildings are connected with a series of hallways that wrap-around the middle school gym (which is the newer one and the larger of the two) as well as the cafeteria. There are several 'shared' teachers. Also the high schoolers are allowed to come down to the ms end for classes but not vice versa.
The big change for the coming year is the full-time hs home ec teacher resigned and my position has sort of merged with hers. So I will have 2 rooms at the far end of the high school where I will be for the 4 morning class periods. Then I will have a lunch break and a plan period. I can either stay there, go to one of the teachers lounges, or transition to the middle school home ec classroom.
This means 6 classes out of 7 periods! This means 3 rooms of inventory and 3 rooms to decorate!
Our mascot is very special--the only one in the world--Cornjerkers! So I've done some word processing using the phrase "A-maize-ing" along with clipart of corn. Last year I had a small collection on display of fall decorations that involved Indian corn, acorns, and ears of corn. I'm planning on adding to that. I also used candy corn clip art images to designate kitchen lab unit areas (one candy corn image for kitchen lab #1 up to 4 candy corn images for lab #4). Here's some of the new items I have gotten started with:
The blue owl print and green owl print fabrics along with the colorful circles fabric have had squares cut and then wrapped around the small cork tiles. I've included a plain cork tile to show that.
In the background in the plastic sheet protector pages, I've created backgrounds to showcase newsy items that I find when looking at magazines, newspapers, and websites that I want to share with the students.
The clip art and word art are waiting for me to cut apart and use for labeling (might be used to showcase homework assignments, bell ringer activities, reminders of what to bring to class, etc.).
The Cornjerker mascot looks like a giant ear of corn (humanized with eyes, arms, legs,...). So it's mostly green and yellow. However the school colors for sports uniforms, lettering, signage, and so on are royal blue, white, and red as accent color. The school district has had smaller rural schools that have merged over the years which might explain the color choices.
So I've decided that for this year I will decorate many of the zones in the ms home ec room with shades of blue and the hs home ec rooms are going to have lots of greens, especially spring green/yellow-green shade like in the fabrics.
Teacher Institute Days start on August 16th, so summer vacation is almost over!! I'm excited about the fun prints and ways to use corn, candy corn, Indian corn, acorns, and maize throughout the rooms.
