Organization is the key to starting off the school year. An effective, efficient, and joyful classroom starts with getting organized. While you are setting up your classroom, you are creating an environment for learning. Classrooms must be prepared to help students become readers and writers.
Meeting Area- While creating the learning environment, it is recommended that you determine your meeting area first. This meeting area will set the tone for the class as soon as students enter the room. This is the area where you will become a community of readers and writers.
Classroom Library- The classroom library should be priority number 2 when determining the layout of your classroom. Find inspiration in book stores... books should be presented to students in an appealing manner. Use signs to label topics, genres, and authors. Also, feel free to spread your library throughout the room, giving students more room to "shop" for books. Consider, rotating your library in order to intrigue students to find new books. Don't forget, the Kendallville Public Library can supply you with books that can be rotated throughout the year. Contact the library for more information.
Writing Resources – As you are preparing your classroom for the year, consider an area that has useful resources for writing and reading. This area should be easily accessible for the students to use to help them with their work. This area might hold sticky notes, highlighters, draft paper, graphic organizers, pencils, idea starters, examples of writing, clipboards, crayons, scissors, and other resources. These resources should help your students work independently, so you can work with more students. Remember that establishing procedures for using the writing area and the resources will be essential. With procedures in place, the students will be more independent and hopefully become more effective in their writing and reading.
Walls of the Classroom - Don't forget the walls of your classroom! The walls of the classroom are great places to post information for students to reference and use in their work all year long. Think about where anchor charts and other information will be posted in your room. Will you use color-coding for charts, designated areas of the room for different subjects, binders with small anchor charts, or technology to display the information for the students? Whatever you decide, keep in mind that the information you post on the walls should be helpful to students.
For primary classrooms, one area should a word wall. Words are added as they are taught and removed when they are mastered. The students should be able to quickly find words on the word wall to use in their writing. For intermediate classrooms a word wall may be an area for unit vocabulary or other important words that the students may need to know. Word walls are a great resource for students to use when they are writing, reading, or learning a new topic.
Another area on your classroom wall should be the 6+1 Writing Traits and writing process. When you are teaching units of study in writing, this area will be very helpful for the students to reference as they follow the writing process and develop a piece of writing. You can use this area all through a unit of study to keep the students aware of ways to improve their writing.
An area for the CAFE menu and Daily 5 procedures will be important for the students. The students will be using the information and helping to create the CAFE menu as new skills are introduced. The Daily 5 procedure charts can be used to remind students of their responsibilities during the Daily 5 rotations.Organizing your classroom with important and useful information will help students access what they need to become better readers and writers. The students will find success within a well-organized room.
