It makes me smile and I have had the same problem for 28 years. I have several big baskets in which I carry around my stuff for the younger students. Lots of animals, toys like cars and locos, food stuff, clothing items and other stuff at home. We language teachers don’t even have a room where we can store our things properly. They are in our staff room hiding behind a sofa and chairs.
I envy those teachers who have a language classroom of their own. This also means I have no board of my own and it so happens that I come to a classroom and the blackboard is full! The things you learn to live with!

I was servicing up to 13 classes a day sometimes for the first 12 years of my career. (90s-2000’s)..
I wore a ‘necklace’ with my schedule around my neck on a piece of yarn- my daily class schedule on indiv index cards – color coded by level…I’d unpack my bag o trick for a lesson and invariably leave it behind for the next…at lunch I’d plant materials for the afternoon…
One year they offered me the basement lunch area instead – I took it even though it took over 9 minutes to go pee and back…
And it was gross.
Now, I’m in my 4th or 5th classroom – I’m the first to get displaced when there are changes (we just got a whole buncha kinder classes from other parts of the district – so I got displaced this summer again)…
I saw it as a golden opportunity to clear out all the sh&* I’d accumulated from my ‘legacy’ days…a colleague was doing a service project in Honduras so I sent her with a lot of the too-hard reading and poster stuff…
The hardest thing about not having a space is not having what you need for improvising…
at any moment I can come up with barbie’s bathtub or a rubber chicken…
As elementary specialists we have learned to fly under the radar and make due…

Amazing. Keep your spirits high and know that you bring the most joyous moments to your students. For me, I would go minimal. I would lose the calendar (I use date by talking about birthdays and seeing who is the oldest and youngest in the class). The more sane you can get, the better.

Hello All,
I am on the cart, a colleague of Jonathan’s in VA. I will send some pics of mine, too. I’ve eliminated everything but the essentials (compared to last year) and everything is rollin’ (pun intended) much smoother this year.
The idea of rolling around actually isn’t that bad now that I am getting used to it – I just wish the school administration would do a better job of making sure that I can get all of the materials that I need in each of the three classrooms in which I teach so there is never an issue of wheeling bulky items around or forgetting quoi que ce soit … It would also be nice to have some input in terms of how those classrooms are set up (this is the aspect of cart pushing that annoys me the most).
Thanks for the suggestions and discussions.
Taron

I have voiced my opposition to teachers sharing classrooms in my own school and they listened to me. It’s just not conducive to classroom management or learning. We don’t need a “World Language Office” and then to share classrooms or have teachers going around on carts.

Unfortunately, there is no avoiding sharing a room as there just aren’t enough classrooms. I think it’s great you advocate for your dept, Greg.
How do I get go about this sticky situation? I share a room one period with my department chair who stays in the room at least half of the period. She is sitting at the front of the room at her teacher desk directly next to where I am standing and conducting class. Sometimes she is working, but sometimes she’s texting on her phone! So while I’m teaching a class, my students are seeing not just me at the front of the room, but her. I have no problem if she/anyone wants to observe my class, but I find this behavior day after day to be completely rude and distracting. There is a teacher lounge or another teacher’s empty classroom that she can go to during that period. Since she’s my dept head and it’s my first year in the building, do I say something to her or to my principal who sets up the room share schedule? I’m wondering if I should just hold off until I find out if I’m asked back for next year.