I like a classroom that is colorful, clean, and organized. Nothing that isn't useful. Everything in labeled bins. A well-organized classroom is a well-run classroom. I had two separate classrooms in my old school building and both of those rooms I have moved into were empty when I moved in. I know, I know. Lucky ducky me. I loved moving into empty rooms, being able to simply envision my space and move my stuff in. I have a few pictures of my previous classroom, they're not that great because I wasn't blogging yet so their purpose was really just to demonstrate student work, but I want to prove how much I love colored coordination, labels, and everything in it's place.
On the right you'll see color-coordinated, labeled math manipulative tubs. All on one shelf, easy to access. On the right is our art supply station, again there are labels on the shelf and everything has a specific place. The anchor charts and posters on the wall/board are all relevant to what we were learning about. The plants, light, and carpet make it feel homey. By the way, these kids are building castles with plaster of Paris bricks they made, a great project for our medieval unit!
In the back is our classroom library. All books are sorted by theme and labeled. Even the clock is labeled! The fountain, flowers, and pet frogs on the right add to the cozy feeling. These kids are working on a math partner game.
Here is a close-up of math tubs. In the back are bathroom passes, a bathroom sign-in/sign-out sheet, and a label for the lightswitch. All labels are in English and Spanish.
Last one of my old classrooms. You can see the writing center in the back with labels on the shelf for dictionaries, thesauruses, pencils, etc. . You can also see this classroom library. In the far back of the picture you can see labels on our construction paper drawer. Yes, that big pile of messy papers is the re-use box. Kids can use this paper for whatever they want during free time and although it is a bit messy, they knew that the mess better be contained on that shelf. Oh, and those are pet birds. Noisy and messy, but fun class pets. The tubs under the table were the students project tubs. Each student had a tub that they would put all their junk in. These kids are working on a 2d shape project; I think they were designing a castle with 2d shapes and then graphed the number of each shape used.
Although I loved it and knew it was out of the ordinary, I never realized how grateful I should have been for an empty room until this year. At my new school, I have moved into a quite messy, chaotic room. I worked at this school as an interventionist last year (no classroom for me, only a little desk in the corner of the computer lab, roaming around to different classrooms) so I spent some time in this classroom each day. Here is how it looked last year.
Look at the messy tables!! The counter is covered with a mis-match of different piles of paper and non-matching tubs. There is also a pile of boxes in the right corner (what's that about) and the "book case" on the left side in not labeled and partially covered with step stools and more boxes of who knows what.
White board looks un-usable, filled with an assortment of things. Random bins of junk scattered around the room. Nothing is labeled. Counters are crammed with piles of things leaving no counter space. Boxes and boxes full of things. Clutter, clutter, clutter! How could the teacher, let alone the students focus in this mess! I'm not trying to be overly critical. I get it, teaching is hard. There is never enough time so I understand how easy it is to not spend the time in the summer it takes to set-up a really great, organized classroom or the few minutes each day making sure everything is put away, clean and organized. However, I am a HUGE believer in the theory that classroom environment greatly impacts student learning and all that time invested into your environment you'll get back ten-fold. Think about how many minutes you and students waste trying to find things or how much money is wasted buying things that you have actually tons of shoved in the cupboard that you simply forgot about? What about the minutes students are not learning because they are distracted by their environment? While this teacher was very sweet, she didn't agree that environment impacted learning and she was retiring (aka mentally checked out) so this is what the results was. She even admitted she was a *bit of a hoarder and cried a bit when she threw some stuff out (I should mention, this is what was left AFTER she had already taken a few truckloads of things home) She was *nice enough to leave me some of her supplies too like. . .
Drawers full of random things. Colored on Popsicle sticks. Hundreds of used Ziploc bags. About 15 interoffice mail envelopes that are usually kept in the main office. I can't even list all the things left because, well, that would take about an hour and a girl can only complain for so long. This is only one of the drawers. I didn't have the time to take pictures of all the drawers. There were 12 of them. All full of things. Sigh.
A cabinet full of more random things. Again, I only took pictures of one of the cabinets. There were 8 cabinets to go through. She loved to store things in old cardboard boxes. While I admit this frugal, the lack of uniformity and the amount of dust that collects in cardboard boxes without lids means that this option does not work for me. Double sigh.
See all that color coded bins and fabric in the far left corner, that's my stuff, can you tell :) I've used the color scheme of light blue, lime green, and yellow for a few years. This year I'm introducing some other colors too so we'll see how that goes. Anyhoo, she also left me additional totes, art supplies, math manipulatives, and a classroom library. Actually this was all really great district stuff so I was grateful for that!! I spent 12 hours, yes TWELVE hours cleaning and organizing. She left two cabinets full of old curriculum, like curriculum that was typed on a typewriter, so I took the time to go through all that making sure I kept useful things. I filled up 1 1/2 of those big, blue rolling recycling bins and filled I don't even know how many garbage bags. I donated two boxes of books and a cart full of teacher supplies (borders, posters, tubs, etc. . ) I also went through 2 packs of Kirkland Signature wipes because there was dust and dirt everywhere and I didn't want to put things into/onto dirty shelves. I still have tons to do. I haven't organized the library. I still have stuff to put away. I have to make labels and put up displays, but I feel like I at least have a somewhat blank slate now. This is what I was left with at the end of the week.
See that box on the ground and that table full of junk, those things got donated. My bulletin board stuff is being organized on the ground in the back.
I also threw away all that random stuff you see on the counters. I LOVE empty counters with only labeled, meaningful things! Anyhoo, I can't go back in to work until August so I've been slowly acquiring some more tubs and bookcases so that once I get back in, I can start putting things away and making it look pretty, I love pretty. I've also been working on those crafty projects like my Good BEEhavior chart and my check-in/check-out system. (posts on these projects coming soon!!)
I'd love to hear everyone's classroom set-up experiences and organization ideas. I know I've been scouring other blogs to get ideas on organization, especially those in conjunction with the
Clutter Free Classroom Linky Party, but I'd love some more ideas!! I'll also make sure to post pictures of my classroom set-up as soon as I can get back in and my projects as I complete them. Happy day!
Jenn
Fun and Fabulous in First Grade
I student taught in 2nd grade and my DREAM was to teach 2nd grade in public school, helping kids who really need it. Well, I graduated college in 2008 and around here in Washington, as I'm sure it was in other parts of the country, teaching gigs were hard to come by. Funding was cut. Teachers who had been teaching for 5 or 6 years were getting laid off so a newbie teacher like me really didn't have a chance. I took the next best thing, a job at a private school.
The basic premise of Daily 5/CAFE is that to make students become better readers, they need to spend the majority of their literacy block ACTUALLY reading real books. I am so on board with this. I taught at a small, private school for a number of years and we had no reading curriculum. We taught many kids how to read by teaching them the phonics and comprehension strategies they needed, but allowed them to read what they wanted. No boring basal readers. No colored reading groups. And it worked! However, we had ten kids to a class. As I was listening I was on board with the idea, but skeptical that it could be implemented in a class of 25+. It seemed though that as soon as this popped into my head, they had the answer. They knew that to really get kids reading, teachers needed to spend the first part of the year focusing on teaching them how to read independently and build their stamina. Once you spend the first month and a half building their independence and stamina, then you can start meeting with students in small groups or one-on-one and giving them individualized reading instruction that they need to become better readers. 
The books give much greater detail on HOW to do this and what EXACTLY it looks like in a classroom. I've read the CAFE book and really enjoyed it. It explains how to implement the model in your room and, my favorite part, has sample lessons in the back for all the comprehension, accuracy, fluency, and vocabulary standards. I've ordered the new Daily 5 book and plan on reading that before school starts too. Their website also has TONS of videos and articles to support the model. 
