As we are about to begin our school year I thought my first blog post should be about classroom preparation. I have put together a short list of tips that might help when preparing your classroom for a new school year! Many people don't realize the amount of work and time teachers put into preparing their classrooms for a year of learning and fun. We enter a room with white walls, tables, desks, and shelves. Somehow we turn a white room with furniture into an inviting classroom full of color and words and pictures!
Whether you're starting out as a brand new teacher, or you are a veteran teacher looking to improve what you already have, one or more of these tips may be for you!
Disclaimer: I'm trying not to be too obvious with some of these. The most obvious tip is probably #1. If this is something you already do, humor me, and read on. Hopefully you'll find one of the others helpful!
Each year, either at the beginning or the end of summer break, I "de-clutter". I go through my cabinets, desk drawers, filing cabinet, baskets and bins, and I clean things out. I either throw away or give away things that I didn't and won't use. Now, I know this seems like it would be a HUGE undertaking, but not if you do it a little at a time. For example, I start with my big tall cabinet. I take everything out of the cabinet and put it on a table in the middle of my room. I discard all of the unwanted things, and I put everything back in an organized manner. After completing the cabinet, I move on to the next! It seems like a lot of work, and I'm not going to lie, it is. But, if you do it, you won't regret it!
You might be thinking...WHAT? What on earth does she mean by "start but don't finish!?" Well, I'm referring to bulletin boards, word walls, and wall space in general. If you're an elementary school teacher, you've most likely made a bulletin board or two. I have found that bulletin boards can either be your best friend or your worst enemy. Throughout my first few years of teaching, I was so proud of the bulletin boards I had created for the students to use. I made a bulletin board with reading strategies, math resources, sight words, and writing resources. They were pretty and organized and I loved them! So you can probably imagine my disappointment when I realized these two things:
1. Students weren't using the resources because they kept forgetting they were there.
2. Students were becoming too dependent on the boards and not remembering the content because it was right in front of them. All the time.
After realizing this, I came up with a new game plan to fix both of these issues. While preparing my classroom for the new school year, I took down all of my bulletin boards (which is a hard thing to do). It helps to have students take things down with you on the last day of school. Then I started by putting up my headers and planned out what would go on each board. Then I didn't finish the board. I placed the items in a folder to take with me when planning out my lessons. With each lesson, I put the sight words, or math resources, etc. with the lesson it would be taught. Throughout the year, resources and words will be put up onto the boards as they are taught. This way, students will learn the concept, watch as it is added to the room, and use it as needed. This idea fixed my first problem. What about problem number 2? Well, as students master concepts; such as colors, shapes, addition strategies, sight words... Some of these resources no longer need to be displayed on a bulletin board. Take things down and switch them out for more advanced concepts and ideas as the students learn and master the content! :)
This tip is the biggest one because it is the simplest and probably most important. After spending several minutes, maybe hours, arranging the tables, desks, and shelves in your room; pretend to teach. I don't know how many times I have come up with a new classroom arrangement, LOVED IT, and then had to change it after teaching in it. Sometimes the spacing between tables just doesn't work. Sometimes arranging your shelf in a certain position makes an area of the room hidden. Sometimes, after moving around the the classroom, you just decide it won't work and theres not rhyme or reason why. You may feel silly walking around your room and going through your day without anyone in the room, but after moving around and pretending to teach, you get a better feel for what will or won't work!
Again, hopefully these tips were all too obvious. I have so many other ideas to share with you about classroom organization and preparation. Look for a later post that includes a tour of my own classroom for more tips and ideas! Thank for reading my very first blog post! :)
