My FAVORITE Classroom Wall Decoration

At the start of the school year immediately following the Covid spring lockdown and school closures, there was an increased focus on student SEL (social-emotional learning), partly driven by teachers’ desire to combat the isolation, loneliness, and anxiety that plagued so many students during that time. Many teachers incorporated SEL check-ins at the beginning of their lessons to allow time for students to share how they were currently doing or share significant things going on in their lives; this also gave students a chance to reach out to teachers if they were struggling mentally or emotionally.

It was right around this time that I came across the following post on the AP Calculus Facebook group: a way for students to share how they were doing with a fun math twist!

The post attracted a lot of attention from other teachers, and one shared her own, slightly-modified version:

I loved the overall idea and especially the way the other teacher designed hers. I immediately screenshotted the post with the intent to create my own version for my classroom - my goal was to keep the idea but create a version on my laptop to print out and laminate. At the start of each subsequent school year, I made a note in my planner to “create a ‘Today I am Feeling’” wall decoration. This went on for four years until I FINALLY had time to create my own version!

It took a while to design, create, and find the perfect image for each, but I just love how it turned out. The colors really pop when printed out and the students really enjoy looking through the different math-y emotions! This is how it looks in my classroom. Since my walls are already so covered with photos, whiteboards, posters, and student work, I was a bit crammed for space. I think ideally I would have laid them out in a more square-like grid, but I’m still happy with the current layout:

Below are a PDF and Word document version of this file in case you want to print this out as it is or modify to personalize!