These weeks before school actually starts are some of my favorites. This is the time when we can live entirely in our imagination. We create inviting spaces we hope the students we haven't yet met will love as much as we do. We choose first books and first activities envisioning the response we hope to elicit. In our minds, a caring, connected community works joyfully and collaboratively. I have to believe that this dreaming, imagining and visualizing are part of what helps to make all that come true as the school year begins, unfolds, develops, changes, and gels. (And, to be truthful, the beginning, unfolding, developing, changing, and gelling are ALSO my favorite weeks -- sometimes months -- of school!!)
I can't show you all the little teaching movies that are playing in my mind these days, but I can give you a peek at my new classroom. I'm really excited (to say the least) to be trying out some really new (for me) ways of thinking about seating and spaces.
Here's a pano from the doorway:
On the left, you see our office space. OUR. I try to keep my pile to a minimum, and students learn to respectfully move my stuff aside if they want to work on the big computer that sits at that desk. On the right is some common work space. My classroom library is mostly around the perimeter of the room. Fiction to the left, nonfiction on the tall shelf by the smartboard, picture books by the window, poetry and nonfiction overflow to the right. There are three shelves anchoring tables/desks: wordless picture books, word study books, and (in the "new" shelf my neighbors generously left at their curb as "trash" -- minor damage on the bottom shelf that was fixed with wood putty) folk tales and mythology.
Here are some snapshots around the room from left to right:
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| In front of our office space, you can see a shelf for shared supplies, and a little reading/work/meeting space around a low round table. |
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| These two standing desks are new. Eight spots in my classroom without chairs. The idea for including standing spaces was inspired by several tweets from my principal, and by discussions with my brother, who works at a standing desk. I can't wait to see what my students think of this! As I've set the classroom up, I've found myself working at them all the time. Lots of professionals work standing up at least part of the time -- artists, chefs, scientists, conductors, singers, teachers...so why not students?!? |
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| This table of six has stools instead of chairs. Good for building core muscles! |
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| In the back, on the tile, we have building/making/Genius Hour materials. |
This pano makes my room seem as big as an auditorium! I took it standing at the smart board and looking out into the room. I started over my left shoulder at the picture books. They are actually parallel to me, not perpendicular as they seem! Same with the nonfiction on the right -- they are beside the smartboard and are looking out into the room like I am. If you focus on the center of the room, you can see the five primary work spaces, and in front of the smartboard, our meeting space for minilessons, sharing, and such.
It's going to be a great year! I can't wait to meet my students and get started!
Here is Room 228 after summer cleaning, but before I really start to make it my own. On the left, cubbies are filled with picture books, poetry, and nonfiction. All of the chapter books are boxed and stacked, along with the shelves, to the right. My first decision -- where will the IWB go? I decide on the board near the TV, back on the left by the window.
I'm starting to get a sense of where the shelves will be. Picture books on the plank and block shelves left of the window and poetry in the white shelf to the right of the window. Nonfiction in the tall shelf to the left, chapter books left and center in the lower shelves. I have moved all of the chairs into the meeting area and will arrange the desks around that empty space.
The big L shaped shelf arrangement took up too much space and blocked the entry path, so it became a J. Four tables of six are ready for students. If I have more than 24 students, there are places at the "office" table straight ahead under the "pink" bulletin board, and at a table behind the camera view to the left, on the tile between the door and the cubbies. (You can see the end of it in the second picture, still stacked with boxes and tubs of books.)
Pretty much ready to go at this point. That corner where the chapter book shelves make their bend turned out to be the perfect place for the clipboards. The tops of the chapter book shelves are lined with tubs of popular series. Yes, I do have a little nook of a desk area in the bottom right corner. I try to take up as little real estate in the classroom as possible (and especially not the prime real estate of the window, in spite of the fact that Room 228 faces the playground and it might [ha--"might"] be a distraction), but I'm not "evolved" enough to give it up completely. I'm going to take everything off the top of the desk that I don't want to share, and it will be another place for a student to work when my computer is over at the IWB. Plus, I have a fun idea for how I want to use that whiteboard beside my desk, and it will require that students have access. (More on that in another post...)
This is the view from the window, looking towards the door -- the opposite view from those above. You can see just a bit of the poetry shelves to the left, then the office table. The built-in shelves along the left wall hold reference books (dictionaries, encyclopedias of all kinds, thesauruses). Next the chalkboard, my desk and shelf, the sink area and the door. Continuing to the right of the door, you see built-in cupboards in the back corner and the table on the tile and the cubbies are back there, but hidden in this picture. Continue around and you see the fiction, nonfiction, IWB, and picture books!
EDITED TO ADD
Well, the white board for the IWB (on the left) was longer than the space I left between the tall NF shelf and the picture books. So, the NF shelves moved straight ahead beside the poetry (covering half of that bulletin board...oh, well). Just goes to show that it's a work in progress, right up to the last moment!!
All of these panoramas were made with the Pano app on my iPhone.
Keep your eyes peeled for free copies of teen author Kevin Brooks' latest dark thriller - Black Rabbit Summer - in the least likely of places. Penguin have teamed up with US site bookcrossing to release 100 of the books 'into the wild' as those in the know call it.
If you've not come across this phenomenon before, bookcrossing is the warm-fuzzy-feeling-giving practice of leaving a book in a public place to be picked up, read and enjoyed by someone else, who then does the same once they’ve finished it. The books are registered on www.bookcrossing.com – which tracks the titles as they make their literary journeys across towns, cities, countries, and sometimes even oceans.
60 of the books will be lurking in clothes store USC (watch out for them amongst the Deisel trainers and Bench hoodies), and the rest left on buses, tubes and trains and in pubs and cafes around the capital. If you are lucky enough to find one, stay true to the spirit of bookcrossing, read it and pass it on.
Jodie Mullish, Publicity Manager, Puffin
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I think if we had our way, we teachers would all want double classrooms, so everything would fit just the way we wished. Your room looks great, Mary Lee. I imagine that you know that moving things around is refreshing & inspiring, right? Plus, students like that it's new, (& underneath I think they like the trouble that you went to for them). Best wishes for a terrific start to the year.
Hi, Mary Lee. Thanks for this glimpse into your classroom. It's been a long time since I was a regular classroom teacher and I loved remembering that quiet, setting up time through your post. Good luck with the start of school!
Looks fabulous!!! You are going to have a great year!