Classroom Update Part 1

I got a chance to work in my classroom last week. Everyone was going to be out of the house so I thought it would be the perfect time to work on arranging and cleaning up my room. Keep reading to see my progress so far!
Since it's the second year for me in the room, it's still relatively clean and I didn't need to purge much. This is what I walked into as soon as I walked in the door. Lots of work to do!

My classroom before

A new tool that I saw someone post about on Instagram was the Scholastic Classroom Set-Up Tool. You can essentially set up a floor plan for you're classroom. I did this first at home a few days before I went into my room. They even have the option to add a roster, but I didn't do that because I don't have a class roster yet. I printed it out and brought it with me to help me with arranging furniture.

Scholastic Classroom Set-Up Tool

The first thing I wanted to tackle was my desk. I didn't like my arrangement too much last year so I knew that I wanted to change it. If it were up to me I'd have my desk in the back of the room. I like to sit and have a complete view of the room while I'm there. It makes it difficult when the computer/doc camera station is in the front corner and we're not able to move it and there were also so many wires. Anyone else have this problem? I tried to arrange the wires the best I could without unplugging too many things. I don't want to get on IT's bad side! So I decided to put my desk facing the wall in the corner with my computer and printer and then put two smaller tables to house my phone, file folder, and document camera. I think this will accommodate me much better. For the moment I put my science cart in front of the small table with the doc camera. I might find a better place for it once I complete arranging my tables.

I chose to put my reading area in the corner instead of the back of the room like I did last year. I have the bookshelves set up to make it like a little nook. I just need to bring my little couch and possibly use my white crates to make little seats. I saw someone on Instagram post that they just added seat cushions (the kind you can just tie to a chair) to the top. It seemed to look great and seemed super simple.

My student computer section also can't be moved because the computers are basically stuck there. The student computer station is in the corner opposite to where my desk is. I decided to put my half circle table next to my desk and also added a shelf. Last year I had the half circle table in the corner where my reading corner is now.

I think this set up gave me a lot more open space for my student desks. I set my student desks up into groups of 7. This might change later though depending if the students can work successfully with this many in a group. In the past, I've noticed that my students work better with groups of 4 or less.

So here are my after pictures. I'm anticipating that I might change some minor things before school starts, but for the most part I'm pretty happy with the set up. Next I will work on decorating the walls. I want to have a Math bulletin board next to my SMARTboard with my calendar and Math Vocabulary Word Wall. I will also make a section for my Lectura, Science and Social Studies bulletin boards to include vocabulary word walls for each.

My classroom after

I'll keep updating as I continue my classroom set up. I'm very excited for the new year with my new firsties! The 10 that I've had for summer school have been fun to work with so I'm looking forward to continuing forward with them. I hope you are having as much of a good time with your classroom set up as I am!