Igniting Critical and Creative Thinking

A Blast From the Past – Old Classroom Photos

I’ve been out of the classroom for 5 years now, and sometimes it makes me a little sad.  Don’t get me wrong,  I love being a gifted coordinator, but sometimes I miss interacting with the students and fixing up a classroom.  Today I was looking at old pictures of when I taught, and I came across some pictures of my old classroom.  I used to really get into fixing up my classroom to match the theme of the units I was teaching.  I suppose my favorite two classroom designs were for my marine biology unit and my unit on Ancient Egypt.  I must have spent a fortune fixing up those classrooms, but it was worth every penny.

Whenever I decorated my classroom, I wanted the kids to feel they were immersed  in the unit, so I kinda went all out.  I thought I’d share a few of my classroom pictures with you.  These were taken in
2000-2001 and 2001-2002 school years.  You can tell by the computers!

Everyone always asks me how I made the murals on the walls and ceilings.  Well, the murals on the ceilings were actually pieces of tagboard cut to the exact dimensions of the ceiling tiles.  I copied the designs onto each one and painted them with acrylic paint.  When they were dry, I just slipped them into the dropped ceiling frame.  Now I was a lot younger then, so I don’t know if I would get on a ladder to do it today.

The murals on the walls were ecru sheets that I draped over some closets and using an overhead projector, to trace the designs from a coloring book about ancient Egypt onto the sheets using a sharpie pen  and then I painted them using acrylic paints.  I had an old mattress box I laid the sheets out on to paint them.  Believe it or not, they still look as good and vibrant today as they did back then.  The gifted teachers are doing a unit on ancient civilizations this year and four of the gifted specialists are using the murals in their classrooms.  We had to have a drawing because everyone wanted one and I didn’t have enough to go around.

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The next set of pictures was from my unit on marine biology.  I hung shower curtains over the windows so it looked like you were in an aquarium when you entered the classroom.

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It’s fun looking at old photos.  What old classroom photos are your favorites that you like to pull out?
Well,  that is all I have for today!  Remember to always…  Keep ’em Thinking!

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hey y'all

I'm Susan!

I’m Susan Morrow and I help overwhelmed teachers create thinking classrooms where students discover the joy in learning and achieving.

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