A Final Bit of Reflection

Coulda, shoulda, woulda...

This blog (just like my first ever first grade classroom) coulda been a lot better than it has turned out thus far. I shoulda spent more time on it throughout the year. I shoulda read more, written more, thought more, reflected more, studied more, rearranged more, organized more, analyzed more, questioned more, answered more, and just plain old "hoed out and throwed out" more.

But as is often the case when people undertake something extra, even something as cool as this project, something they are really interested in and committed to...my "day job" (and even sometimes my personal life - GASP!) got in the way of me doing all the more I wished I coulda and thought I shoulda. What I learned along the way is that although my classroom arrangement may not (yet) be perfect, my students are happy, confident, thoughtful, reflective, independent and accomplished thinkers, readers, writers, math wizards, scientists, friends, and human beings. And really, what could be more important than that, at the end of the school day?

Yup, I woulda liked to have done more with my classroom makeover this year, but then what would I have to look forward to in 2009-2010?!

My Desk...STILL a work in progress!

My ultimate "teacher desk goal" since early in the year has been to GET RID OF IT! I quite literally NEVER sit at the teacher desk. When I do sit down to do work in my classroom, I'm either at the computer or at the small group meeting table. There is no reason for this hunk of furniture to be taking up room that could be used in a more child-centered way. It truly serves only as a clutter gatherer and definitely wastes what I feel can and should be valuable instructional space. Having said all of that...in the midst of a crazy, hectic school year the time to undertake the project of doing away with the desk and reconfiguring the space seems to have gotten away from me. Thus, I have done my best to at least somewhat battle the clutter and look forward to a few summer work days to finally kick this thing to the curb!

Better than in the fall?? Maybe a bit.

Small Group Meeting Area - AFTER!

Okay, I am going to be brutally honest here...this corner of the room is still on my "To Do" List but progress has definitely been made** since the beginning of the school year. One thing I have learned is that I am actually not trying to create a "pretty" space, but rather one that truly WORKS for small groups, particularly for reading instruction. As I feel I am in the process of learning how best to "do" guided reading instruction in first grade, I am also feeling my way through how best to configure the instructional space. This area continues to be a work in progress.

**See "Before" post to decide for yourself just how much progress has been made!

File Cabinets...Friend or Foe?

As I began the year in my new classroom I had every intention of starting off on the right foot with a highly organized space. But with more unpacking, organizing, and arranging work to do than time to do it in, something was going to have to give. In my case, it was the file cabinet drawers. What I first considered an amazingly vast space to fill with amazingly organized files quickly became more appealing as a great big pit to fill with the junk I didn't know what to do with and didn't want parents and other classroom visitors to see.

Here is a photo of one of the drawers early in the school year...sort of hard to see just how messy this is, but it is basically a heaped up pile of discombobulated posters, pocket charts, bulletin board materials, and other assorted "stuff."


Here are the file drawers now. I am not going to lie and report that they ALL look this neat but I am about 80% there at this point.

Work Stations that Actually WORK for us!

For a detailed description of each of these Work Stations, see previous post "What's In a Name?"

Books 'R' Us

Listening Center

Computer Center

Author's Studio

Word Factory


Word Factory # 2


Read the Room

Creation Station

Stop, Look and Learn Station


First Mate Interest Center

Fantabulous Friend of the Day Center

What's in a Name?

As I endeavored to create a classroom environment that was more learner-centered, one of my wishes was to allow the children to name the literacy work stations (or learning centers). I also involved the children in creating the norms for each center - the "can do's" and "can't do's" that would make each area a fun yet productive place to learn. After much discussion and debate (and finally, a decision by the kids to "take a vote"), here are the names the children came up with:

Books-R-Us - Reading Center to read and write about books, including an "I Recommend It" station where children create posters to advertise books they think others would enjoy.
Listening Center - your typical station with books on CD and tape, also including response pages for children to do some written comprehension work.
Word Factory - word work area for working with weekly sight words, featuring our Word Wall and including activities with letter stamps, alphabetical order practice pages, sentence writing sheets, ABC books, vowel/consonant work, sight word Bingo games, and more.
Word Factory # 2 - space for one child at a time to build weekly sight words with magnetic letters, write them and "butter" them - featuring clipboards and highlighters - a favorite!
Author's Studio - "writing center" with small and large blank books, including optional extra pages by popular demand; lined paper; blank paper; note paper/cards; seasonal writing paper; graphic organizers; editing checklists and whisper phones. This center also featured a class-created poster (Debbie Diller-style) on which children shared their writing topic ideas.
Creation Station - "art center" with weekly projects to offer fun, creative opportunities to practice tracing, cutting, coloring, drawing, and other fine motor skills. Many projects arise out of children's ideas/inspirations..."can we do this in the Creation Station next week?"
Computer Center - well, nothing creative about the name, but it is a popular place for children to use their techie skills to utilize a variety of ELA/Math/Science skills. A great feature is that I came up with a way to make many of the monthly activities available for children to access at home via the use of our class webpage. See Computer Center link here to get an idea of how this worked.
SmartBoard Center - opportunity for children to practice concepts in a variety of areas including word work, math, science, and more while honing their skills with Mr. Smart Board.
Read the Room - pointers, clipboards, and scavenger hunt-type pages for children to find words around the room. This area could also have been called "Write the Room" as the recording sheets required a lot of writing. For some of the year, by children's request, we also featured Word Family Hunts for children to search for word from particular word families we had worked with.
Stop, Look and Learn Station - an area that made good use of what would have been wasted space - the bottom half of the front of our classroom door -- each week a new instructional poster was featured, usually tied to our current science or social studies focus. Children took "research notes" using the information on the poster to share with the class. An added bonus of this center was that its location aloowed it to also be utilized by children in adjacent classrooms!
"First Mate" Interest Center - this area was a space that was dedicated to our Student of the Week (we called him/her the "First Mate"). Each child had an opportunity to teach the class about a topic of his/her interest. After presenting the topic to the class, the First Mate placed posters, artifacts, books, etc. in the Interest Center for the week. Children had the opportunity to visit teh center to do further "research" on the topic of the week. During the last several weeks of school, this area turned into the Fantabulous Friend of the Day center. Each child had a turn to be the Friend of the Day. On the given day, each child brought in a Mystery Bag Show and Tell item and provided clues. Throughout the day children visited the center to record their guesses based on that day's clues. Children could also create compliment posters to present to the Friend of the Day.

Stay tuned for a future post with photgraphs of each of the Work Stations!

Small Group Meeting Area - BEFORE!

This is to be our small group meeting area, a place where I will work with daily reading groups and other small strategy groups in language arts and math. Right now it is a disorganized, disheveled mess. As the day goes on it seems to become a "dumping ground" for papers that don't have their own home. Organizing and arranging this into a learning space truly works is a top priority.