My World Language Classroom Setup

Ok, so it is a week late, but at least I’m posting! 

I was struck with an AWFUL case of food poisoning last week and had to take a day and a half off to spend in bed and in the bathroom. ??? UGH, sub plans (listen to next week’s podcast for how I make my sub plans WAYYY easier, for me, admin, subs, and students!)

Without further ado, here’s a detailed tour of my classroom! Gosh! I am SO proud of my space! I’m not finished with it either! I saw this awesome post from one of my favorite creators on instagram (yourfavoritemuslimeducator) and asked permission to use it in this blog. She just recently left the classroom, and I think what she said is so important especially when you see so many beautiful “Pinterest” ready classrooms out there.

Outside My Classroom

I guess I’ll start outside of my room! I get my own bulletin board this year, and it is going to be my goal to switch it up every month! So far I’ve been able to keep ONE background and just switch out the images or student work on top! (Check out this post from Bertha Delgadillo for some awesome Bulletin Board ideas)

Next my door!


Students ALWAYS line up and wait for me outside of my class. This was also the case when I taught Middle School! I like to start with a password. (I’ll talk about these in the coming weeks). For the first few months of school, the passwords I use are greetings. On my door, I have several greetings and farewells posted. I have these in English, French, and Spanish in my TPT store. I don’t post all of them on my door but just a handful, and I’ll start with those. I also like that they’re a colorful welcoming site when students arrive to class.

This is the first thing that students see when they walk in!

Each class has its own country name (read about that in this blog, and if you’re interested I have slides ready for Spanish, French, and German teachers). When they come in each day, they see a welcome slide for their class! The technology ambassador in each classroom is in charge of switching to the do now slide once everyone has their journal. 

Entering the Classroom

Students all enter my classroom in the same direction so that they have to pass their journals at the front of the room. Each class has its own bucket sorted by country class name (I haven’t yet printed the country flags for the front of the buckets).

The bulletin board above the buckets or journals is for exemplary student work! Part of the teacher evaluation rubric at my school is to have current student work hung and of course my kids love seeing it! 

My classroom library is DEFINITELY not finished. Right now, everything is just on shelves in an unorganized way because we won’t be reading our books just yet! Next to that I have my supplies that we may need on a day to day basis. The next bookshelf houses their binders; trying binders AND journals this year! Let me know if you want to learn about how I use them! I am thinking about doing a post! 

Above my bookshelves I have the Pride flag. It has already created lots of awesome conversations and I’ve had kiddos come up to me to tell me that they have family members who are part of the LGBTQ+ community! ?

Many of you have already seen this photo in my last blog. I created this wall (to the left of the bookshelves) WITH my students. We created our community norms TOGETHER (every class took part in the creation, revision, and finalization of these) then signed a community contract. You can read more about that here.

The white board, directly to the left of the journals, is the one I use most often. You can see the points left there from my last class of the day. (You can read about that part of my classroom management system here.) The song of the month is posted at the top of the board (I don’t love this location but it works for now), and my voice level poster and hand signals posters are there too. (I’ll be sharing these resources soon, but in the meantime you can read the linked blog posts!)

Underneath that white board are some of my circumlocution posters. You can read about how I introduce circumlocution here. I collaborated with Teachers Discovery to make these in French and Spanish. The idea is that I want to (as much as possible) encourage students to “find their way AROUND” the words they don’t know by using the language they DO know. Then, when I share the vocabulary word they were searching for, it makes it that much more “sticky” for them! 

Starting next week I’ll be hanging my high frequency words (ONLY the ones I’ve already introduced) above that white board. The first 5 weeks of school we’ve focused almost exclusively on TPR. I was inspired by a presentation by Jon Cowart, and I am feeling so confident about my student’s rock solid foundation!

My Promethean Board

Feeling grateful to have a promethean board again! It has been a couple of years since I had my own. I love it! Below my promethean, you can peep my FAVORITE word wall. I think it is so beautiful. I bought this resource from the Woke Spanish Teacher (Françoise Thenoux) in her TPT store. They’re my color word wall. My students LOVE them just as much as me! 

Above my promethean are my question word posters. I don’t love these either, but they’ll do for now. I found a free set online by Señora Cabello that I like and may use them. You can find them here. 

The words attached to my whiteboard are also from Teachers Discovery. I collaborated with them to create a story word poster set in French and Spanish. Again, I don’t hang all of them but just a few to help me at the start of the year. 

The whiteboard on the OTHER side of my promethean board is being used as an “out of bounds” vocabulary holder. I have been erasing it between classes, but soon I may make them permanent and erase it each month. I did this with great success about 6 years ago, and I am thinking about trying it again.

I don’t LOVE how I have my rejoinders set up right now. I mean, I love the bulletin board and the posters themselves (also on TPT in English, French, and Spanish), BUT I am not crazy about how many I have hung up. I think I am going to take them all down and just put them up AS I introduce a rejoinder. The posters above the bulletin board have traveled with me for the last 8 years. Just days of the week and months of the year. I also have an adjustable clock for stories!

Students’ Calming Corner

This is my calming corner. I talked about it in the Masterclass I led at the beginning of the school year. It is a place students can self-select to go to or I can send them if I feel that they need a space to take some deep breaths. There are breathing exercises in the folder as well as reflection forms (being shared for free in an upcoming email to my listserv! If you’re not on my email list, you can sign up here!) for students who are continually not meeting expectations after reminders and redirections. 

Materials, props and storage are all hidden under these tables! I talked about my journey to this deskless classroom this year in my podcasts episodes 16, and 17. You can find those here!

Windows! And, more Windows!

I love, love, love my windows! 

The unicorns and stuffies on the windows are IMPORTANT because they each have their own magical class job. I’ve done this for YEARS AND YEARS but never blogged about it. If you’ve been to a workshop with me then I’m sure you’ve experienced this magic first hand. I will work on those blogs this year I hope! 

Speaking of workshops! I’ll be in Dallas (October 1st) , and just outside of Cleveland (Perry, OH November 5th) this fall! I would love to have you attend one of these workshops! To learn more just click the links! 

Since I work at an IB school, I have the learner attributes posted on the bulletin board at the back of my room. I made these and shared them for free in a recent email. I am working on getting them in French too, and I’ll share them in this blog with the Spanish ones when I’m finished. 

The pocket holder thing on the left will be where classroom jobs are listed and WHO has each job in each class. I see 7 classes per day. (I see EVERY CHILD EVERY DAY…. SO DREAMY right?!?!! Also, so exhausting! lol!) 

Helpful Carts

The cart is on the left. I don’t use it for anything but filming reels right now! Haha! I am sharing a new Teacher Tip every Tuesday! If you haven’t seen them yet, connect with me on Instagram! I’ve shared 4 so far!

I am SOOO very lucky this year to have my own computer cart. We spent lots of time talking about computer use and norms for computer use before they ever gained access to them. 

I haven’t been able to finish my “wall of happy” which goes behind my desk, or hang the poster for the calming corner. My dilemma with lots of the stuff I want to hang is I can ONLY use sticky tack at this school and NOTHING else, and it doesn’t hold much. Sigh…. 

If anything changes significantly this year, of course I’ll share! I hope you enjoyed this classroom tour and I hope you’re having a FABULOUS start to your school year!

Until next time, 

HAPPY TEACHING!

Love,

La Maestra Loca