My summer socializing with my teacher friends ALWAYS leads to sharing plans for what we want to put into place to make our classrooms successful for the next year. Here are some of the things that get shared:
Will I choose a “theme” for my classroom decorating?
- One year my theme was a nautical one… Each of my rotation areas in my room (small group, independent reading and technology) was marked by a life preserver on the wall. The largest wall in my room contained a large mural of a beach which I found at a party supply store, and our discussion of routines and procedures for getting to rotations was about “dropping our anchor” successfully and what prep was needed to “weigh anchor” before heading to the next anchor dropping spot. I established myself as the captain while my students were my crew.
- That same classroom, occupied by another teacher last year, was the reading ranch. A western theme guided the decorating, visiting the technology rotation included landing at the assigned corral, and volunteer readers were known as the reading wranglers.
What will these areas of my room look like?
- Large group meeting
- Small group meeting
- Quiet work areas
- Conferring Areas
- Classroom library
What routines and procedures do I need in place from Day 1 to create success?
- Materials: pens, pencils, paper, journals, folders, sticky notes, highlighters,:What do the students bring, and what can I provide? What is kept in the room and what do students bring daily? If I keep it in the room, where is it kept? What are the procedures for students borrowing and returning these items?
- “Looks like” and “sounds like” expectations: small group, conferring, working independently. How can I give explicit descriptions of these expectations by describing what I expect to see students doing and what I should/should not be hearing? How is it the same and different for reading and writing?
- Classroom Library Use: When can students check out books? What is the classroom library checkout and return system?
Summer is time for classroom environment planning! What’s on your mind right now as you think about setting up your space? Share your thoughts in a comment… this is just the beginning!
I was wondering if any of the teachers were talking to were READ 180 teachers. Did they have themes for their rotations? IF so I would love to hear what they were. I think this might be a good idea. I am just trying to figure out how to figure this out for middle school kids that it would be cool.
I used the nautical theme when I taught Read180. I had attended the National Summer Institute and that was where I got the idea to have a theme. The reading ranch was used in a combined Read180 workshop classroom.