This week we were revisting some EQs from earlier this year as a means of reflecting on our behavior, as well as how we’re doing as a community. One that was really interesting was “How do you feel cared for?” There were so many different answers, and I wanted to see them all together, so I made a Tagxedo of our responses. Here’s how it turned out:
What do you notice? Do you notice any patterns? How would YOU answer this question? 🙂
Hopefully you’ve seen the little bit of work I’ve been doing in our room to get ready!
Today I was at school for another big chunk of time, and look who showed up to help me!
Anna and Sophia were busy bees working to figure out that big pile ‘o books that was on the table the other day.
They ended up with many new categories to divide the titles into, and actually recreated some of the old tubs I used to have–that part was funny to me! I’m excited to see how these changes (along with some other ideas I have) make our library an even better place to be!
I also got our time zone clocks hung today (and yes, I realize that it’s ten to two everywhere. Forgot batteries. Oops.)
And then….my favorite part showed up:
It’s a beauty, isn’t it? Just like I imagined. SO EXCITED for what’s going to happen around that table this year! Thanks again, Nancy!
Getting excited!
I love to share what things look like when I first walk into the classroom in the summer. Remember these from a couple of years ago?
It’s the classroom I was in 2 years ago, but gives you a good idea of my first sights when I return to school at the beginning of the year to get stuff put together again. This year’s view was very similar, only in the room next door.
Putting a classroom back together is a tedious process, with lots of bits and pieces to put in their places and a big puzzle to work out. And that’s if you put everything back where it was last year! If you decide to make any changes (because something didn’t work last year or just because you want to try something new for a new group of kiddos), then it’s pretty much like starting all over. Your plan has to be completely different.
So I started by putting all of my furniture back right where it was at the end of last year. And then I started thinking….
We really loved our room arrangement last year, and it worked for us based on our traffic flows and how we used each part of the room for different activities. Except…that I knew I wanted to trade my desk with the table right next to it so that I could use the only whiteboard in our room for small group teaching times (instead of just having it behind my desk and covered with random things I tacked up there and didn’t really use). Smart, right? Yeah, it took me all year long to figure that one out…:)
So once I got the table and desk switched, I really liked it. But then I couldn’t leave well enough alone, and it so it got me wondering what else I could move around that might work even better than what we had last year. My carpet was the next thing on my list. Maybe moving it into the corner (where my desk had been and where that new table was now sitting) would be a good idea–again because of that whiteboard. Having it in our meeting space might be even better than for small groups. So I picked up the fabulous carpet (remember when we got it last year?) and moved it into the corner, along with my easel and my chair. That left me two tables, two filing cabinets and a supply shelf to figure out. I think I like the new changes even better than last year. I figured out that putting the rug in the corner also meant that the doors of my closets can now be used for charts and other things we’ll refer to during lessons (more on my ideas for that soon!).
And then….I looked at the spot where my next was and agreed that I liked it there…but then had another (even better!) idea: maybe I don’t even need a desk anymore. I’ve gone back and forth over the last few years about whether or not I really need one; I don’t sit at it except before and after school, and it’s space that kids could probably use in a better way. It really just serves as a place for me to house all my stuff. What I really have wanted for a while is to have a dining room or kitchen table in my room. I love the idea of kids (who are really a part of our learning family) sitting all around it having lively conversations and growing together. The problem? I still had a desk, and no table. I knew I could probably find one on Craig’s List, after having no luck at Goodwill and garage sales over the last few weeks, but I thought instead to appeal to my friends on Facebook. It worked. I really quickly found a friend (who also happens to be a parent from our school!) who had a table that she’d been hoping to do something with–perfect, right?
I don’t have it yet, but I am SO EXCITED for what the room will look like when it’s in place. My new plan is that it will go where my next was, and all of my stuff will find a new home. Then, if I need a place to perch, that will be my primary home, but kids can also sit there with me when they like, as well as using it for conferences and small groups. What do you think about that? (Really, you can tell me. I promise. 🙂 )
So the title of this post is starting to get settled, then, because I feel like with the furniture in the right place, then I could start to get some things on the walls. This makes me feel like things are closer to coming together, and it definitely makes it feel a little more like home. So here’s where I am so far:
I got our We’re Connecting with the World map up! It’s just waiting for some time zone clocks (a new addition this year!) as well as all the pins to represent the new friends we’ll make around the world this year! This is definitely an important part of our room.
I moved the calendar this year around the corner. We only really use it for reference, but on this wall we can see it more easily from most parts of the room (as well as if I’m sitting at my new table or if I’m on the phone). We’ll see how we like it. Oh, and I found that little bucket in my closet–it has the calendar numbers in it. Cute, right? 🙂
This will give you a better idea of all that craziness I was trying to explain before: rug in the new corner, my desk which will become our new table. You can also see (as well as in the previous pics, too) that I got our Read Aloud Timeline hung up and we’re ready to get started adding to it for this year’s new titles! Oh, and that big mess of books on the table is the middle of a reorganization project in our classroom library. Anna and I are going to start tackling it on Tuesday, and believe me, I’ll share when I’m done. 🙂
The new birthday wall will be next to our meeting space here, as well as those closets I mentioned before. I plan on changing the titles there to other topics…
Ok, one last picture:
Just a small treat from the littlest Beardens in our family! Had to keep them busy while Mommy was working in the room the other day.
What does your classroom look like right now? What about at the beginning of your work? How do you tackle that big pile of “stuff?” I’d love to hear how it works for you!
I don’t know how long you’ve been reading, or how far back you’ve gone through the post archives, so I’m wondering if I’ve told you about class meetings yet? I wrote about the big idea behind them here, and the story was pretty great. This class is doing an amazing job with class meetings, too. Each week, though, when we sit down together to reflect upon the week and talk over things we want to improve upon, there aren’t really any problems to solve. Oh, come on. No way, right? No really–we had to change the last question on our meeting protocol to “What do you want to talk about?” rather than “What do we need to improve upon?” because of how well these kids work together, learn together and just generally follow the rules and procedures of our school. Don’t get me wrong, they’re not perfect. We do work things out together. This week was an example of two kinds of issues to discuss.
Like class pet petitions, for instance. Here is what the flipchart from this week’s class meeting:
So, see all those dots after “class pets petition?” It meant that several people wanted to talk about that topic. But again, it wasn’t because it was a problem. They just wanted to talk about it. They needed to decide whether or not it was a good idea for Ames to make us an origami class pet, and if so, what type of animal we’d want to have. We decided that Ames (as the origami master of our class) would narrow the list down to four of his best creatures, and we’d vote on the one we liked best out of those four. Then we’ll chat about it again next week.
Ok, so there did end up being a concern they did want to try to work out, and it was related to recess. A question was posed about what to do when you try to play with people and they tell you you can’t. We had a great conversation about strategies to try, words we could use and how it felt when someone told you you couldn’t be a part of the group. The idea of “popular” kids was brought up, and the concern was raised that there are some people in our grade who won’t play with certain kids because they’re friends with certain other people who are considered weird or different. It hurt my heart as I heard them talk about what was going on outside on the playground, and we decided that it might mean we needed a grander conversation. We agreed that we would do what we could to support each other outside–like paying attention to when people are alone and inviting them to play, or standing up for our classmates if we see or hear something mean being done to them–but we agreed that this might be a topic that would be better discussed with our whole grade level. So I have “homework” to coordinate a 5th grade recess conversation in the next few days. This was definitely a problem worth tackling, and one that we want to see solved.
The other day I shared about how we’re rethinking, rebuilding and redecorating in Rm. 201. I worked feverishly on Thursday and Friday last week, hoping to have most of our big moves done before the new week started today. It didn’t happen, because eventually I had to go home :), so I continued working today, using the class’ ideas from the maps/plans they had made.
I’m still working on the last few details–labels on boxes, signs/charts/posters, reorganizing game/math shelf–but I had to share the new version of our room with you. I know I said it before, but I LOVE LOVE LOVE how all of these ideas came from my kids! In all of the years I have been teaching, organizing and planning classrooms, I would never had put the furniture this way, but it is hands down my favorite plan ever. The learners in my class really do know themselves well, and know what their space should look like for them to feel comfortable and relaxed and ready to dig in.
I apologize for some of these, it was late afternoon and there may be some shadows. But I just couldn’t wait. Maybe I’ll try again tomorrow in better light. You’ll get the idea, though: our room looks and feels great!
I wish I had taken pictures of the “before” the other day before I started moving stuff, but you can get a pretty good idea of what it used to look like if you go back to the early days of the blog–at least what it looked like when I started. Maybe you can come see it in person someday. It’s way better being there anyway, because then you can also see how great it feels!
GREAT JOB, KIDDOS!! KUDOS TO YOU!
Remember this? Since then we’ve done several other math warmups about geometry and decimals. But we’ve also been doing some other things–things that started out with math and quickly spread to other areas of our life together in Rm. 201.
Let me explain…
The other day I asked my kiddos a question, and after I did, I realized–by listening to the crickets and seeing their confused faces–that they didn’t get it. So I rephrased it, and also took them on a little tour to help explain what I meant.
One of the things I’m working on is making our room look and feel like it’s as much a place for mathematicians as it is for readers, writers, and scientists. So I took them to a place that I knew would help them get a feel for what that looks like–our neighbor next door, Mrs. LeSeure’s 5th grade class.
We sneaked in very quietly and looked around. The directions were to pay attention to what they saw that told them that math happened in that room, things that maybe they didn’t see in our own classroom. We then came back and brainstormed what we noticed.
Here’s what our list looked like:
Ok, I know–you’re distracted by the messy handwriting. I promise, it’s not usually that bad. I was writing fast. 🙂
What was really great about what they put on the list was that they noticed things that I know that Pam specifically did for her math environment, but they also caught on to the things about how the room felt, the subliminal messages that were being sent in that space.
As you can see on our chart, Mrs. LeSeure’s class has things that help her students in math, like anchor charts from things they’ve just learned about, like area/perimeter and the difference between similar and congruent, both from our recent 2D geometry unit. But my students also talked about how her classroom felt. They said that it felt relaxed. It was clean and neat and colorful. This was where I had to be brave. I had to remember that just because they said her room was like that didn’t mean that ours wasn’t, or that I am a bad teacher, or that her class is better than ours. It just meant that Rm. 202 had some things that ours doesn’t have, different things. Things that we want to add to our own room.
Most of what they were saying actually went way beyond the original math-related question I asked. They went deep. And they made me nervous. But like I said, I had to be brave. Their statements dug deep to the reasons why some things happen in our room, the reasons why we sometimes struggle with paying attention and why it seems like we don’t know what to do next, or why we waste our learning time. They were really great comments, actually, and come down to the fact that our room just really isn’t working for us anymore. That was the part I had to be brave about–I am, after all, the one who designed that room, and created the environment in the first place.
Remember when I showed you what it looked like the first time I came in during the summer? And then how it started to change as I put it together? Well, even since then, many things have changed since we first started together in August. But on Wednesday we were talking again about how more change needed to be made. I loved how Evan put it when he said, “I don’t mean to be mean, but you arranged the room without us, and we’re the ones who spend the most time here.” And you know what? He’s totally right! It’s really funny how that whole thing works, really, with the teacher planning and arranging and setting up the room for a group of kiddos she doesn’t even know yet, without their input. I know it’s just what has to be done, but it would make sense that the people spend all that time and energy there every day should have some say in how it looks. And feels.
So that’s when it happened. I gave them a chance to suggest changes they thought should be made. I asked them to tell me, and to even draw a map if they wanted to, what they thought about what we could take out and what we needed to move. Everyone got busy, some by themselves and some in pairs or small groups, making lists and floor plans to help us all see the vision of what we could do.
It was so very cool to “see” the classroom through so many new sets of eyes. I obviously look at and pay attention to different things than my students do as I go through the learning day. It was also really cool how similar their maps were when we sat down to look at them. For example, there at least 3 different groups who suggested that our classroom library move to another part of our room (a place where I originally was going to put it, actually, but then changed my mind about) and how everyone agreed that the cubbies as a divider between the carpet and Table 3 just didn’t work. Most of them had the same idea for how “my” area could change, by turning my desk 90 degrees and putting my computer in a different place. And I appreciated how they used their new geometry vocabulary to explain it to me!
So I began that very afternoon to make some of the changes that they suggested. And you know what? IT LOOKS AMAZING! These kiddos are so darn smart about what they need and what works for them as learners. They teach me every day, in a respectful and appropriate way, that I don’t know everything! The room has taken on a new and different feel, and most people who have come in have commented on how they like what’s happening. We’re not quite done yet, but believe me, I’ll definitely show it to you when we’re finished. I’m really pretty excited about it. And they are, too. I love how many kiddos said to me how much they appreciated that they have a say in this. I’m glad I gave them a say, too. Because they are saying some pretty great things.
How do you make decisions about your room/environment? When have you had to be brave? What ideas do you have for us as we work on the environment of numeracy (and literacy and so on…) in our classroom?
20somethingkids and 1kookyteacher 