My Special Education Classroom

I just recently moved  into a special education position and spent a lot of time getting my classroom ready. I love, love, love the end result. In fact, I love it so much and am so thrilled with it that I decided to take some pictures and share the setup with you!

This is my eighth year teaching so I have collected a lot of office supplies and things like that. If you are looking to start your room fresh, save and collect. It takes some time. Trust me.

Let's start off with my calendar. When I found out I would be taking a special education position, I began my TpT search for the perfect product to help keep me organized. I soon began to realize that I preferred a physical type of organization over a digital type. I absolutely love adorable planners and calendars so I marched myself right to Wally World, spent like an hour looking around at them all (on my date night), and found this Mead planner for right at ten bucks. That was a little steep for me, but I knew it would be well worth it and I knew it would make me smile every time I saw the cute thing on my desk. So to keep myself organized, I color code my system with highlighters. I use blue, orange and pink. Blue=Call a Parent, Orange=Due Date, and Pink=ARC. I also like this type of calendar because I can close it and the information is covered when I'm not in my classroom which is a lot of the time.

Next, we can look at how I keep up with my student papers and keep my classes separate. I've had this drawer bin thing for years and I remember when I purchased it. I actually found this thing at Joann's and they had it on sale and had actually priced it incorrectly. I was also able to use a coupon with it and before they knew it, I ended up paying about $22 for the thing which it is regular $50 plus. This chic was thrilled! So back to my organization. I have three different grades that come into my classroom. I labeled each drawer by their grade using some chalkboard labels I found at a Michael's a hundred years ago as well as a chalkboard crayon my sweet hubby found for my at a Dollar Mart! Yes, that's right, the Dollar Mart! Let me just say that's the most awesome chalkboard crayon thing I've ever used! It's stands out so much more in person. My desk didn't have any drawers which was fine with me, so the rest of the drawers were used to hold some of my desk supplies. 

The picture below shows my shelving area. This area holds my photo albums. Things that make me smile basically. Pretty colored binders, folder organizers and some school supplies such as glue and things. If you look closely, those folder organizers on top in the middle are adorable blue and green colors. They were hideous black! I took those things right out in the yard and spray painted them with some Krylon paint that sticks to plastic. By the way, I found them for free!

Something I really struggled with the last few days was getting my Aimsweb/Progress Monitoring system organized and in place. Normally, I've only ever progressed monitored five or six students at one time and I never felt confident with it. I created a color coded system as now, I have twenty-five to keep track of. I know I've mentioned color coding a few times, but this just works best for me. If you look at the image below you'll see colored dots on each folder. Yes, I could've bought colored file folders, but these were free and the dots were so much cheaper. Don't judge. I have pink (also in pink hanging file folders). These are my K-1st graders. I have orange (also in orange hanging file folders) for my 2nd-3rd graders. I have green (also in green hanging file folders) for my 5th-6th graders. This system helps me to stay organized and know where my paperwork is and who I'm working on at the time. 

The last thing I finished up late this week was my board where I keep an agenda basically. Having this really helps me not to forget what I'm doing each day. I came home one evening and decided I needed some vinyl for my Cricut to create this. Low and behold Amazon (the most amazing place in the world) had all kinds for $3.50 a roll when my local store was selling the same thing for $15 a roll! I set to work once it arrived cutting my letters for the subjects I cover with my students. I also purchased the glitter tape at the Dollar Store for a buck! Ta-da! That's my classroom! I hope you love, love, love! Please ask any questions if you'd like! If you need help with your agenda letters, please don't hesitate to contact me! 

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To Collaborate or Not to Collaborate?

I realized the other day that a lot of conversations that I have with colleagues result in something that might be worth sharing with the world. I really enjoy collaborating and when talking with a fellow teacher the other day, I realized that the huge lack of collaboration within a school can really tear down a school. This eventually shows in the atmosphere to new comers, and even in test scores.

Now tell me this. Why in the world would we as educators, who are supposed to be there for the students, refuse to work closely with fellow co-workers? Why would we want to compete and refuse to share ideas? I can't really answer this, but I'm assuming it's for stupid reasons such as "I'm better than you" or "I got the most parent requests and you didn't" or "you're not related to anyone, why in the world do you work here". Well, I say to heck with this type of junk. We are all grown women and men, we have earned our degrees, we have set our goals in life and we should ultimately be there for the same purpose which would be to make a difference in the lives of children.


I think a lot of the problem falls on the lack of administrative management and support. We see it everywhere. A corrupted BOE right along with a set of corrupted schools. Family members are repeatedly hired whether it be cousins, aunts, spouses, etc. In the end, the result is a school that fails to meet the needs of its students. The reason being, no one feels they are going to be held accountable due to their connections/relations, thus, the slacking begins. One slacker rubs off on another and before you know it, one school has fallen behind and not just a little.

So, ask yourself as a teacher, should we collaborate or not?

Bitter Sweet Summer

As I sit here looking back on the summer. I am remembering the sweet moments I have shared with my little boy and baby girl. Planting flowers, pulling the heavy wagon all over our property while my kids giggled, riding bikes, going for runs, forgetting our jogging stroller at the park (luckily not forgetting to get the baby), these are all bitter sweet memories.

These summer months that we teachers are blessed to have really do spoil me. We've spent long hours working for these summers off with our schooling and our overtime put in. It's always a well deserved break. What do you do on your summers off? I spend my days of summer pretending to be the best stay-at-home-mommy ever and I really get into it! I clean, do laundry, play baby, teach my little boy in ABCs, play trains, tag and cars.

Life is so much more relaxing when you are able to make your own schedule and plan activities with your own children. I think back on my decision to become a teacher and I realize that I must've had a love for children. What I didn't realize twelve years ago when I made that decision as a freshman in college, was that I would rather be home with my very own children instead of with other peoples children. I spend so much time as a teacher planning for other peoples kids that I sometimes feel overwhelmed and that I don't have time for my own children when I get home. I don't know if anyone else out there feels this way, but I have just began to realize this.

I love to teach and I love to be around children, but I sure do miss my own when I'm spending so much time with others. That's just part of it. I will continue to secretly hold my breath that I will be a stay-at-home-mommy, home school my kids and throw my six years of college away in the process. It would be worth it I do believe.

For now, I will go.

Coffee Table shaped like Kentucky!!!!

Those of you out there that are UK fans that just so happen to live in Kentucky or outside of Kentucky need to check out this coffee table! I just love it so much that I put one in my own living room! My talented and crafty husband created this table from the ground up for Kentucky fans across the nation to show their love right in their homes.

$30,000 Business Success

I've just hit the $30,000 mark for earnings with my online teacher shop!!! I'm so excited, I just couldn't wait to let the world know!! I sell on Teachers Pay Teachers and I know there are a lot of teachers out there ready to make a change in their own lives! I saved my earnings and was able to purchase a new car with it! The sky is the limit here! I just want to let others know that you can do it, you can make a difference in your life by just giving it a shot!

I can't wait to hear your stories!!

Barnett's School House

Make your Shop Stand out!!

Do you want to increase your TpT shop sales? If so, read along. I've come up with so many items to make my shop seem full and my sales stay pretty steady. I have recently decided to do a makeover for the products inside and out. As of now, I've been working on the outside of my products which includes the cover pages. Once I finish this part, I will go to the inside of some of my items and make them even better. We have to admit that items from 3 years ago do need a facelift. It's just going to have to happen. Now, look at these cover page images, which ones do you like best? I have to say, what was I thinking back then? You live and learn and you get a lot of practice!!!

I have had my TpT store for about 3 years now so they were due. I've been working on this for a few days and it does take a lot of time. I am really loving the turn out of these cover pages, though and it's so worth it. They are making my shop stand out when I click it and just seeing the before and after makes me smile really big.  I can't wait to see if my sales increase for the upcoming month! This makeover isn't finished yet, please do visit my shop to see what I've been doing to make it "pop"!

Teacher Blogger Design Template

Ever wondered how all these teachers get that teacher looking blog design? I used to so I spent a lot of time conquering blogger and I have finally succeeded. I was determined to find a way to make my blog look all teacher like without the heavy price tag of say 100 plus bucks and I did just that. The design below is pretty close to how my blog looks now if you haven't noticed. You can get your blog design like mine by visiting my shop and it's only $15.99 for everything! I've got many more designs coming soon and I can't wait to offer them to you and your colleagues!

Organization Project: DIY pantry

I've started a few projects for my eighth summer as a teacher and this one has just about got me down. My husband and I have started moving our pantry into an old hallway closet, thus, our DIY pantry. When I say "old" I mean, this was my personal closet before we moved upstairs into our new addition. Let me just say, I begin to panic when things get cluttered up and I start throwing things in the trash to calm myself down. We have two children so you can imagine the clutter we have going on. I guess you could say I have a sensory processing problem when it comes to clutter. I love a neat and organized place to live. I'm slightly embarrassed to post this picture, but I'm going to do it for the sake of decluttering. I want to let you know, that you, can do it if I can.
This is my closet full of overflow basically. While clearing this thing out, I almost had a panic attack, but me being the perfectly capable teacher that I am, did it.

We are having company over in a few weeks for my little girls first birthday and I am very anxious about having everything perfect. My first project was to paint my cabinets in my living room and my second project was to get the big pantry cabinets out of my foyer, thus, resulting in the haul over of this closet. Our current cabinets are cluttered, a wreck and very hard to find anything in. We had this space and I just got an inspiration. I always tell myself that if something happens to me, I want people to come in and say that I was very organized. Haha. 

We made a trip to Lowes once I got it cleaned out, and mind you most of it is in a yard sale pile right this minute. It's sad how much we can collect. Our trip to Lowes consisted of buying more wire shelving which to our dismay over the last seven years, they had remodeled the styles, but we made it work. The picture below shows how far we've gotten and let me just say, we are so proud. Well, I am. My husband does things like this all the time. I hope this gives you some inspiration for your newest pantry.