Thanks Ashli for the spectacular idea of sharing what adorns our classroom walls.  I’ve got the regular math posters, sports schedules, school policies, and motivational cliche’s, of course.  A classroom would not be complete without a stock photo along with transformational words like, “the key to success is self discipline.”

What really brings me the most joy in my classroom and truly makes my classroom mine is my dog wall.

Ok, it’s actually two walls.  Backstory:  I love dogs, beagles in particular.  Duh.  But the reasoning behind my dog wall runs deeper than that.  Yep, the dogs are adorable and the kids love that they can put a picture of their own dog in my room.  I love it when I have younger siblings of former students, and they ask “hey, you have a picture of my dog!”

The real power behind the dog wall is acknowledging what dogs can teach us about love.   In short, no one on earth is capable of loving you as much as your dog.   Oprah gives us a nice example when remembering her cocker spaniel, Sophie.  If you have a dog, you know what I’m talking about.

I recognize that not all students are lucky enough to own a dog.  I also let them bring in a picture of any dog, but I make sure to mention that I like beagles best.

My plans for the expanding dog wall include using them for some estimation and data exploration.  Someday.