Saturday, August 13, 2011
My Classroom: The Physical Design
As anyone who reads this blog knows, I'm headed back to the classroom after my two year stint as an RTI specialist and I couldn't be happier. I have been working in my room all summer trying to find the best way to set it up to promote the ideas that I have about learning. I want very limited time for students at their desks. (I actually asked for tables, but didn't get them.) I also want comfortable, inviting reading areas and whole group instruction areas (carpet). I teach fifth grade so I tried to balance my ideas of an elementary classroom with the maturity that I know they expect as "kings and queens" of our K-5 school. I went with a jungle/safari theme. Here are some pictures of my design minus a few things that I haven't gotten up on the walls yet. The entire album can be viewed through this public link on my Facebook page.
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This is great. The FB pictures are awesome. Your room doesn't look like a classroom. It has more of breakout session feel which is great. I can't pick out a front or a teacher desk. Both of those aspects make for a very student focused area.
ReplyDeleteDid they let you paint the walls and have the couch in there? I think our district has rules about both of those. Where can I find a tree like the one in the bottom picture in the blog post? I've got a room this year with no exterior windows and won't be able to have living green.
Thank you so much for your kind words. I debated on not putting in a teacher's desk at all, but found a small one that someone had left in the hall and that's what I'm using.
ReplyDeleteMy school is very old so they let us paint the walls every summer if we want. I realize that this is not the norm compared to other schools. I'm taking a bit of a chance with my futon in the back. No one has said that I can't have it, but I know that when the fire marshall comes in, he may ask me to take it out. I'm spraying it with that fire retardant spray, but if he still asks me to remove it, I'll just replace it with bean bags. The tree came from my sister-in-laws garage:) I shopped a lot of different places for an artificial tree, but most were quite expensive. She didn't have room for it in her house and told me I could use it until she did. I think it sets off the entire room and hope she never finds a place for it!
I don't have any exterior windows either. I also have a large carpet toward the "front" of the room where the students gather for whole group mini-lessons. I'm trying out Reader's Workshop this year and I'll write more about that in later posts.
Thank you so much for your feedback!