So, just for fun, I thought I'd post some stuff I did to my classroom at the beginning of the school year. I'm actually trying to figure out a way to rearrange my classroom right now, but it just hasn't come to me yet. I got the approval to do it, but it came with a few conditions, so I'm having to rethink what I had in mind. It's proving a lot harder than I thought it would be. Anyway, on to the improvements I have made so far!
First is my management system for centers. I have nine center areas in my room that I use. Technically, their suggestion is to have the seven learning centers by subject as choices, but I don't always do centers in the same place and my kids don't really get that. For example, not all of my science activities are appropriate to do at a table, and I don't even always use the same tables for the same activities. So instead I labeled my pockets with pictures of the general areas I use rather than the subject of the activity.
Each kiddo has a stick with their name on it to choose their center. I just realized one piece of my little management tool that is not in my picture that helps control which centers we are using for the day. Each pocket has a little two-sided insert. One side is colored red, and says "closed" and has the number zero. The other side is colored green, and says "open" and has the number of kids allowed in the center written on it. I did the numbers with a vis-a-vis (my cards are laminated) so I can change the number of kids per center if I need to.
And there's a close up shot. I just printed a library pocket template on some cardstock, glued those together, and glued my pictures on the front. Oh, and the pictures are of the actual stuff in my room, so there's no confusion because it all looks the same. Then I put contact paper over the pockets to attach them to the shelf. The kids love it and it has worked really well. I wish I had started it with my last group. They just go over to the pockets and move their stick to an available center and don't have to ask or interrupt or anything, it's all in their control.
This is my job board. We change jobs every day. I actually am only using four of the six jobs right now, because I only have six kids and part of my goal here was to teach them about taking turns so it didn't make sense for every kid to have a job every day. So, I just take their name cards and move them every morning. These are just sentence strips with pictures of the kids actually doing the jobs, again attached with contact paper, but not over the top edge so I can stick the index cards behind the sentence strips.I have to say, these things seemed so simple when I was prepping them, and I was kind of torn because I felt like I had decent classroom management without them. Plus, when kids moved up at the beginning of the school year, my class size shrank, so I felt like I didn't really need the extra tools. But honestly, I am so glad I did it. Especially the center management. It is so much smoother to be sitting and doing a project, or even be prepping a project for later on, and be able to say "Go move your stick" instead of having to watch the time and rotate kids around the centers myself. And I have fewer kids whining about being bored or not getting a turn somewhere or complaining about not being able to play a certain place. The turns are much easier for them to visualize and they even tell each other "That center isn't open today" or "There are already four sticks there, yours won't fit." I am actually very impressed that the kids have picked it up so well. It's really one of those things that I've heard forever but it really is true. Kids will live up to the expectations you set, and I am so happy I've set them high because they are totally capable of making their own decisions! :)
I think that's all for tonight. Hubby will be home soon and I should totally go fluff the clothes in the dryer so it looks like I was being a good housewife this evening! :D
