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.

Centers? WHAT Centers?

I dream of setting up literacy work stations that are well organized, purposeful, meaningful, engaging, and fun places for children to work and learn collaboratively and independently.

Here is an example of the distance between my dream and reality at this point...

Ugh! Boxes "hidden" underneath the table that should have been unpacked over the summer, unappealing area with no clear purpose...at this point, a wasted space.

My Desk: A Work in Progress

Yikes! BEFORE pictures of my desk area...I am embarrassed to admit that this is what it looks like on a typical day. Maybe by the end of the school year I will have this mess under control!

Rescue Window = Wasted Space?

NOT ANYMORE!

The back of this bookshelf sits in front of our fire rescue window, so I could not put any furniture or other objects in this space since they would block the exit. This area also adjoins my small group meeting table, so I did not want to set up anything that would be noisy or distracting as I worked with reading groups. I thought this was going to be "dead space" until I came up with this solution: an added section of our "Word Factory" with room for one child at a time to build this week's sight words with magnetic letters. On the right, a baking sheet is attached with industrial strength velcro; on the left, a shoe bag is bolted on to hold the letters (sorted into labeled pockets with two letters per pocket). A star pointer in the middle encourages children to point to and read each word. The white paper pictured above the cookie sheet is the current week's sight word list tucked into a sheet protector (which is also velcroed to the shelf). This quickly became a favorite work center, and in spite of my hesitance to have a center where only one child could work at a time, the children actually think it is "cool" that they get the whole space to themselves!

Using Wall Space Wisely

Reading Debbie Diller's Spaces and Places has caused me to rethink the way I use every inch of space in my classroom...including the wall space. Here is one example of a recent change I have made in order to make the most of my space.

BEFORE: Lovely "teacher store" posters that were attractive, but basically meaningless to my students

AFTER: Word Families charts that the children and I created together - transforming this wall to a space that the children refer to regularly to support them in their reading and writing

The Back Story

This year I have the wonderful opportunity to loop up to first grade with a little more than half of my kindergarten children from last year. This is especially exciting as it is my first year teaching first grade. As I began to set up my classroom I realized I had a lot to learn about setting up a first grade learning environment, and I was particularly struck by the challenges of working with a smaller space than what I have had in the past several years. Although we are now in the second month of school I am still working on setting up my classroom. This is driving me a little crazy but I am committed to tackling this challenge in a very intentional, thoughtful, learner-centered way. I am really taking my time and thinking carefully about how every aspect of my room arrangement will impact children's learning. I am reading an extremely helpful book called Spaces and Places by Debbie Diller. In it she speaks of establishing "classroom environments that support teachers as they teach and help students learn more independence" (Spaces and Places p. 66). This book is inspiring me to keep plugging away, one area of the classroom at a time, until I have created a learning environment that truly meets the needs of my students and is a "home away from home" in which all of us can thrive. This blog will serve to chronicle my classroom makeover adventure!