Part 2: Clean up your classroom!

Well, the plan has been initiated. The kids and I have read Mrs. McBloom, Clean Up Your Classroom, and talked about how we need to clean up our room to make it the very best learning space possible. I may be a very strange teacher because I am brutally honest with my students. When I explained that I had begun to feel like Mrs. McBloom, one of my girls even stated "Maybe this will help you feel better, Miss Kennett!" Gee whiz, I hope so.

To prepare, I've created a scaled map of the room and the contents of the room. I then put it in a center for my AM students to work with. It's amazing to see their awkward room arrangements that they created today (One of the students wants to transfer everything to the ceiling...) and even more amazing to see that some of the ideas that they came up with were right astounding (One little girl who constantly avoids her work stated that my table should be by the bathroom corner so I could be close to the 'clips' should I need to move them, and so I can see who's going to the bathroom to avoid doing their work. I think she's thought this through...). Tomorrow is the big video day and I'm rather nervous. I'm not that great at working cameras so we'll see how it goes! I'm planning on videoing my afternoon class, since their class is smaller in size.

My students and I also opened the classroom library today. It's been open, but I've finally got it the way I have been hoping it to be. We called it the "grand opening". The students and I worked together today to create a set of rules that go in the Library. What they hammered up was the following list:

Classroom Library Rules

1. Use a quiet voice.

2. Put the books back in the correct bucket. Be sure to check and make sure the sticker on the book and the sticker on the basket match!

3. Be careful with the books.

4. Be a librarian. (i.e. Take care of the area, put things away, straighten shelves)

An aspect that seems to amaze me is that the students, with a slight amount of guidance, are coming up with the same rules that I would use.... only now that *they* came up with them, I find them *enforcing* them with each other. My plan is to take these rules and using pictures from google or pictures that I've taken, create picture cues that go along with each rule. The students have decided to place the rules on the heating unit in the library.

As I was preparing for moving day, one thing that is worrying me is the fact that I have 2 classes. How can both classes feel as if the room arrangement is their class' idea?

In addition, I've also been visiting some other classrooms at Goodridge in attempts to steal some ideas from other teachers. As soon as I can, I'll post the pictures from these visits. :)

Until tomorrow....