Classroom Setup | Organize, Flow, Zones | The Lettered Classroom

long time no see me in this type of view right y'all like it has been a while I hope you guys are still enjoying your summers I hope that this video does not stress you out because a lot of people are putting up videos blog specifically on getting their classrooms ready for the year so I'm gonna preface this video by saying please don't let this stress you out if you can't get into your room start thinking about some of the things that you can do instead of just this piece please know I'm not doing a lot to my room this year y'all like it's not gonna be a huge setup I'm just gonna put everything back I did get a little bits and pieces here they are new and I'll show those to you but I don't want this to be stressful I will also tell you guys that I have a new team teacher that's gonna be on our team this year so I'm trying to get as much as my stuff done now so that I can help prepare her as much as possible before the beginning of the year starts so with that being said let's get in to my classroom setup let's do it the first flogging okay so I figured what I would end up doing with this video it's a little bit more leisure truly a vlog I'm gonna take you guys around I want to show you my classroom of what it looks like now and then we're gonna do the entire setup so let me flip this around show you what I got going on so here's what my classroom looks like for right now there are no tables everything has been cleaned the floors have been cleaned chairs are still stacked tables are still put away and stacked but yeah everything is cleaned up and ready for me to begin my setup I want to be able to give you guys some of my tips for setting up a classroom while I'm doing my own classroom so that you can kind of keep some of these things in mind as you're going through this process in your own room or for when you do get into your own room so what are the first things and I think I've always done this is I'd like to be able to play with tables only I don't tend to use any chairs I like to be able to rearrange the tables I want to kind of get an idea and a flow of where certain things are going to go so the first thing that I'm gonna do is I'm gonna play with the tables now usually once I get my tables where I want them I'll start kind of putting up my organization piece y'all if you are a brand-new teacher and you who are going into your classroom I know it's hard okay I know you want to decorate but please leave the decoration for the very end you're gonna save yourself the sanity it is going to be the most helpful thing that you do for yourself to help set you up as a first year teacher to really focus in on what's happening behind all those doors because you don't have your organization down it's gonna be a rough rough year the the cutesy stuff isn't going to help you for the year you need to get organized so the first thing I'm gonna do set up my tables I'm gonna start pulling things out of my closets because my closets are completely loaded so here is the first closet I tuck everything away to get it off of my floors and my counters and here is my second cabinet so once I do that I'm gonna start going through my closet it's putting some of those things on top of my counters because my organization piece I got that down last year I did it right before the end of the school year was about done so it's just about put in my room back together and making it feel like a classroom again here we go let's do it okay so my tip number one was to really focus on the furniture the organization piece leave the cute for after guys you're gonna thank me so much once you have the structure and the organization of your classroom set one of the things that I do when I'm really thinking about the flow and organization is I want to make sure that I'm standing in some different angles in my classroom to make sure that I don't have any blind spots so are there any areas in the classroom where I know for a fact that kids can like move off to the side they can hide to where I can't see what they're doing I want to identify those spots now a lot of the times you're not going to be able to get rid of them completely especially if you have a room like mine where already has a lot of those built in cabinets and shelves there's just no way unfortunately there's not a ton of different ways that I can organize my classroom because of those so many people say oh my gosh you're so lucky because you have all those cabinets it's a yes and a no I am very lucky to be able to have all the cabinet space but y'all let me tell you like I loved my kindergarten classroom because I was the one that was in control of my organization and where it was going to put things I can move things around and have so many different setups because I didn't have oh I can't put anything against that wall or oh I can't put anything over here because I can't open those cabinets or those shelves I didn't have that so there's not a ton of ways for me to be able to organize this space so a lot of the times and in some cases not a lot of times but in some cases just like my room you're not gonna have a complete you know view of all spots so identify those spots now if you're going to have them like I do in my room identify them and make sure that you make students aware that they are not allowed to be back there and set those consequences very early if they don't know how to choose spaces properly you they just don't get to choose those spaces so you take that choice away from them so I've kind of gone around I'm gonna show you just like the general I didn't change a button but i'ma show you the general areas now so the goal is that I want to offer a few different seating styles for my students so I always like to offer some floor seating which is what I do all I do is take off the legs the adjustable legs completely remove them from the desks and put the desks just down on the legs that are just permanent and it makes awesome seating for students then I have three large tables that I do like to keep just because it is nice especially for when I have my math group and I'm running in more of a self-paced classroom because then I can adjust my groups in certain spots the round table I've just always had I love that table my sister bought that for me a long time ago and I just don't wanna get rid of it but my thinking here was because there are so many kids that have access back here in this spot they want to go back and get waters and stuff it's just too many people in this general area that I decided to go ahead and put the round table back there for easy movement and then I'm placing my area from here which is where it was last year to here I had it over here I think one year when I first started teaching and I really really did like it so I think I'm just gonna go back to having my little space back here and then I am going to make this a student space which is something else that I really did love so that is probably kind of the flow of what the classroom won't end up being like it might end up changing I don't know those you that know me really well you know for a fact that it's gonna change your thinking Bridget don't joke yourself you're gonna totally change it around you guys you're so right so that's the view from the back to the front and what the space will end up looking like I don't necessarily love that tall table there I have to think about it so tip number three is going to be to really focus in on certain areas in your classroom and make sure that those areas have a theme to them so a lot of times it's like you know putting your math stuff with your math stuff your writing stuff with your writing your reading with your reading and so on and so forth this allows for kids to really be able to find things in a general area so you can say where's our math area or if you have it if you're much younger you can have it posted up from the ceiling to say Math Center reading Center writing Center so on so forth so when I started this out today I didn't think I was gonna change a lot and I actually ended up changing quite a bit so I think I'm kind of at a point now where I have a general flow for my classroom so it is more about can I see certain kids in certain areas what I really want to focus on with the organization the flow of it of my classroom is that I want to make sure that I can see kids in specific areas that I don't really have any of those like blind spots and then if I did have blind spots and I have to have those blind spots then I'm gonna make sure that I keep those in the back of my mind so that I can address them one student start to arrive the next thing that I really was focusing on it was setting up specific areas and when I was setting up those areas I also wanted to think about the number of kids and I'm gonna show it to you in just a second but I have a certain area in my room that would always get incredibly clogged with children and it was right next to the door and it got me so frustrated that I was like you know what I'm not gonna put that back over there because it was just a problem area at the end of the day so I've changed up one of those little areas and then I also want to offer a variety of seating options so I don't want kids to feel as though they can't really change seats that they can't change their comfort levels like I want to make sure that I'm addressing all different levels and needs of my students so I think I'm getting to the point unfortunately my room isn't completely done I think one more day here and I'll have it done and I did get here way later than what I wanted to get here to be honest but maybe another date and I will absolutely haven't finished and that day is more gonna be about decor I guess so let me tell you like the general areas that I have in my classroom the flow that I was thinking of and talked through some of the changes now I do need to add a few seating areas which I'll show you that as well all right so here is my front door last year at my front door I had a bookshelf like the four cubed up shelves from Ikea here that had our mailbox system and that was just not working for me there kids would get all get clogged right here in the front door and it just drove me nuts so I have decided I'm gonna give you like a bigger view to get rid of one of my bigger tables huh this is very scary for me because I've never really wanted to get rid of any of my big tables but it's gonna be okay so here is kind of the general I have one two three tables and then the small one here I did not like how if this was my area back here by the way do you guys love the rug you had my little poof I love the poof how if I was back here that large table didn't allow me to see the smaller group of kids so instead what I've done is I've just placed my bench over here for the time being to offer a different space for students to be able to sit some kids like to sit on the floor and just kind of hang out and this will allow for them to sit there while I'm still able to observe them so that cube that I was telling you about earlier there has now moved here that's like a room divider or a space divider I guess it doesn't divide the room but it's a space divider so now it kind of divides this like table space to this like more quiet space so this here in this general area is going to be zoned the the quiet zone so if you want to be more collaborative you're gonna have to sit in some of the bigger tables versus sitting here in this space especially because if I'm meeting with a reading group or something to that extent I don't want a big collaborative group next to me also another lesson that I learned last year so these little buckets here are meant for kids we store our chapter books because a lot of the times like the kids just have huge books and they don't fit in my mailbox so their chapter books gets stored in here by house for homeroom and then right on this side ignore the diet coke is their mailbox system and this is where they'll put their folders so now it's not I have to put folder way and my book away which was taking an absurd amount of time but now it's gonna be I can put my book away everybody create the line here and boom they can put their items inside of their mailbox I think this is going to be the best I did enjoy one year where I had this whole space was zoned the student area so all of the materials that any of my students would ever need was in this area the papers the extra supplies like everything that they would ever need was in the zone so this is kind of the student supply area and our quiet space and a spot for them to put their books which I do really like how that kind of divides that little area there so I mentioned that I need like four more seating spaces I have 26 kids this year the highest number I've ever had and I need four more spots so here's what I was thinking this backspace over here I think I'm going to take out and I'd have to figure out what to do with my fridge but I'm gonna take out these cabinets these drawer cabinets and I'm gonna have stools inside of them so that the kids can just sit there and use that counter space as their working space so that's kind of the game plan with that that means that I need so I need four stools that I'm gonna put out here one two three four spots but now I got to clean all of that out to have the kids be able to access it and then I would need to move my fridge and my Keurig which if I had to I could figure out a space back here which is what I'm gonna have to do and that's just gonna be okay I still have a bunch of junk that I need to get rid of obviously like that cheer is not gonna be here that lamp I'm gonna get rid of that stuff that's up there is gonna get rid of I'm not gonna keep that easel because they just don't need it I need smaller stuff and it's just too big my room looks big in camera it's really not that big so that is my general space that's kind of where I'm at at this point I did get my choice up which made me feel good and I even put up my good morning board so every morning the kids come in and all of their information as far as their specials go because specials are high for different groups so they go to four different places for special since I'm multi-age but it'll tell them their specials what activity period is in the morning we have our house point system the date will always be up there it's just a nice little catch-all spot for students to be able to come in and see about any announcements which is nice so yeah give you one a little more spin around it gets dark and that is my general space we don't have a ton of supplies for multi-age we just use a lot of that we use a lot with our iPads especially now that we're getting bring new iPads this year which is really really exciting for us our older iPad minis were not wanting to perform as great last year so we have gotten all new iPads for fourth fifth and sixth grade which is really cool and so we'd really limit ourselves on the amount of materials that the kids have so they're gonna have a main folder to keep any papers or anything that they might get from us which usually doesn't have very much in it in the first place because again we keep it all online they're gonna have a notebook this year and their book that's really about it other than their iPad so I don't really need to have a lot of places to like store things but I did want to say that that was the student area and I forgot to mention another area the books are kind of placed all about the room because I am the library for all three teachers made sense than having them in three separate rooms just to put them in all in one so I am the library for the for the entire Mac team but I did want to just kind of point that out so let me show you the math area so this is my math zone excuse the wire it's going to the humidifier right now but I have my headphones up here and then I have any of my math materials which I have to kind of clean this up just a little bit math materials are going to go here and then I'm going to make this big board right here my math board so it's going to keep track of where my learners are at any given time during math so that's going to be my math board which is the thing that I'm going to end up changing this year but I'm pretty happy with the rest of it I think it looks pretty darn good I'm gonna go ahead and just end this video here because they're gonna start closing down the school and I'm ready to get home I'm very hot very sweaty I've got lint all over me it's just not fun so I will share the next time continued progress hopefully that should be the only other time that I would need to share any sort of progress for my classroom and then it should be done so I will see you guys next time to finish up my room bye [Music]

Channel: The Lettered Classroom

Views: 19,730

Rating: 4.9032259 out of 5

Keywords: teacher tips, The Lettered Classroom, classroom decor, first year teacher, classroom setup, classroom organization, a day in the life of a teacher, elementary teacher, middle school teacher, education, how to be a teacher, teacher youtuber, teacher vlog, weekly teacher vlog, classroom ideas, classroom inspirations, teacher organization, upper elementary teacher, teacher life, classroom set up, setup, classroom, classroom flow, i love my classroom

Id: E1auauMXPIo

Length: 18min 45sec (1125 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 21 2019