First to give you a lay of the land, here's a quick video around the entire space:
Now let's talk about this year's updates! First of all the biggest change is going back to pre-pandemic seating arrangements. Oh how I have missed my circle! This year I used these carpet spots, which have a darker green color than the ones I used last year (my old ones were hard to distinguish between yellow and green), and so far they're holding up well.
I've also got my chairs back in rows by color team instead of having each chair spread out:
Last year because I had to set up the chairs spaced out 3 feet each, I wasn't able to use my normal job of line leader (I had a job for hand sanitizer instead). This year my line leaders are back!
One of those, "Why didn't I think of this sooner?" tiny upgrades this year was on that same magnetic board where I have the color team jobs- the magnets for each class going up the piano keys are now horizontal and much easier to read:
A procedural change I made this year was to designate my own hand signals for students to use in music class when they need to use the bathroom or a tissue- I made posters showing those hand signals next to the board. I also made new letters for my "MUSIC" letter system, which you can see in the same photo (those were long overdue for an upgrade!):
The final update is one that I'm probably more excited about than I should be... I got new clipboards! I added these to my Amazon wishlist this summer and was thrilled to get them. The clips are much smaller, and they are plastic and of course in my 6 rainbow colors. So much to love about these compared to my old ones! I also decided this year to give students the choice between regular pencils, which I wrapped in a small piece of duct tape, or mechanical pencils.
It has been a great start to the year to far and I do have a couple more updates to the classroom I'm hoping to get to throughout the year... we'll see! But for now I'm very happy with our space. Rather than rehashing all of the details on where I got things or why I have things set up the way I do, I'll direct you to my classroom tour post from 2018 where I have a lot more details on most of what you see here. And of course please leave a comment with any questions!
Love your millions of ideas--thanks so much for sharing! Question: Do you have color codes only for the groups in each class (I saw where you have kids earn points by color, thus teaming them up with students in other grades--love that!), or do you also color-code each grade? I'm trying to figure out how to set mine up and I like to do one color per grade but your thing is also great. My brain sorts in colors!
ReplyDeleteThanks a gazillion!
I do both- they are separate systems both coded by color- although the color coding by grade is more for me and the color coded groups are for the students, so they stay separate in my mind and don't seem to confuse the kids. I don't think they're really aware of the colors I have for each grade but if you watch the quick video tour you'll see those colors used in the picture frames on the wall next to the ukuleles, where I write each grade's lesson objectives, and in the posters on the back blue wall next to the boomwhackers, that show the grade level expectations for each grade. I also use the grade color coding for my drawers in my closet where I keep current papers and materials for each grade, in my planner where I write my lessons, and in my filing cabinet where I keep originals of worksheets, manipulatives, etc to use with each grade year to year.
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