Fall 2008
	Classroom D.I.Y.

Talk Back!

» Contact the Editor » Share a Story Idea » Free E-mail Newsletter » Advertise

Classroom D.I.Y.

Transform four bare walls into a powerful educational tool

By Alain Jehlen and Karen Zauber

The 30-year veteran next door has a beautiful, inviting, stimulating classroom.

You’ve got…just about nothing.

Where do you start? How do you plan a room that will not only feel like home, but help you teach and manage your students? We asked experienced teachers how they did it and got both fun and practical answers.

In the printed version of Go!, we’re showing off the extraordinary room of Louisville fifth-grade teacher Jason Hubler with photos that show about half of the room.

Here online, we’ve got Hubler’s whole room, plus photos of more great classrooms and explanations from some of the teachers who created them.

We also have a paper by Garner, North Carolina, literacy coach Lynn Flood that lays out more systematically her ideas about classroom design.

In the future, we plan to put up captions for the photos of each classroom, but we hope the more general comments will be useful to you.

Jason Hubler

lucasbuck@insightbb.com

View photos of his classroom

“I want it to be a place kids feel comfortable in and like going to,” he says of his masterpiece classroom.

His advice for getting neat stuff for your room? “Don't be afraid to say, ‘Can I borrow this? Can I use that in my classroom?’

“You’ll be amazed what you can get just by asking.”

We’re not suggesting you try to recreate his digs—for one thing, he did this in a double room, much more space than you probably have. For another, it took him many years to put it together. But we hope his example will inspire you to create a classroom that works for your students and fits your personality and teaching style.

What does the mummy have to do with math? Okay, it's a stretch. The connection is pyramids (as in Egyptian). This one's a “pyramid of probability.” When you drop marbles into the mummy's mouth, they come out a hole in its neck and tumble down following random paths, collecting at the bottom in roughly a normal distribution. A lesson the kids will definitely remember!

Lynn Flood

21st Century Literacy Coach
East Garner Magnet Middle School, Garner, North Carolina
LFlood@wcpss.net

View her photos.

Flood helps new teachers at her school learn to set up their classrooms. She uses these tips.

The photos she sent us are from a number of classrooms. She uses them for her new teacher orientation.

Kit Noonan

kindergarten teacher
Carderock Springs Elementary, Bethesda, Maryland
Kathryn_M_Noonan@mcpsmd.org

View photos of her classroom

I’ve taught kindergarten, second, third, fourth, and fifth grades.

In setting up my classroom, I try to think like children: I want it to be friendly, comfortable, warm, and inviting. I think about what will work for them. I consider height: Anything I want them to notice is three feet from the floor or lower. My alphabet is above the chalkboard because that’s the only place I could find uninterrupted wall space. But they don’t ever look up there unless I point to it.

I want it to be useable for them: “These are resources available to us. You don’t need to ask me to get them. You know they’re there for you. Unless I tell you otherwise, everything here is here for you.

If it’s not, I put a note on it: this is off-limits. Everything is labeled, everything has a place.

They each have a seat, and maybe once a day, for 10 minutes, they will do something there, but otherwise, they should feel safe and comfortable anywhere in the classroom. I try to give them as much control over their environment as possible.

Things in blue cubbies go home, things in red cubbies stay in school. Everything’s very routine. My kids know what we’re doing, what we did, what’s next, and where it will take place. You can ask any kid and they’ll tell you: We’re at literacy stations. Here’s how we do it.”

It’s an upper middle class neighborhood. Two working parents is the typical home situation, but I have parent volunteers because they have flexibility in their jobs. They’re not punching a time clock.

My first four years in the county, I was in a much lower income community and I had one parent volunteer who came once a week for half an hour. The facility was beautiful, but it was just me and the kids. We knew where everything was.

But now, there are different adults in the room at all different times, so everything needs to be understandable and accessible to all. Now, anybody could walk in and find anything they need.

We get $150 or so to buy supplies, given to us by the PTA. (When I was in a poorer community, we didn’t get anything.) I spent a ton my first few years. I’ve been in the county 11 years, and I still spend at least $1,000 per year. I buy books on tape, paper nametags, things I need for little projects. The warehouse has basic stuff like paints, but not puffy letter stickers, or cute pens that will motivate kids.

Karen Fichter

ESL Department Chair
Zebulon Gifted and Talented Magnet Middle School, Zebulon, North Carolina
kfichter@wcpss.net

View photos of her classroom

A trailer is a little more difficult to "decorate" than a traditional space. However, especially with English language learners, it is important to have items relevant to the unit currently being taught in the middle school classroom. To that end, I have vocabulary words the kids have made into "4-corner" posters—each poster has a word, the definition, a sentence, and a picture on it. They can refer to them throughout the unit as they read to help them understand.

I also put up reading or writing strategies for the students to use as they read.

I post a calendar, and put current items next to it (such as pictures from our field trips).

Finally, I make sure that I post a schedule of events or agenda for the day for the class to refer to, including content and language objectives and homework assignments or project due dates and reminders. Not only does that help the students know what to do and what they will learn for the day, but it keeps me organized and on track!

Jennifer Larsen

First grade teacher
Alexandria City Public Schools, Virginia
jlarsen@acps.k12.va.us

View photos of her classroom

I have been teaching for fifteen years in kindergarten, fourth and first grade. For my first nine years, I worked with a very challenging student population. Many students had both emotional and academic concerns. Many had little book exposure prior to kindergarten. While it was exhausting, demanding and required daily reflection, those first nine years molded me and created who I am today. I learned to reduce down time. I carefully thought through all the transitions. I learned to anticipate and prevent problems instead of always solving them.

In the beginning of my career, most teachers used the "pull-a-card" behavior system. This is where students pull a card (similar to soccer penalties) when they break a rule. I found it was NOT effective, especially with students who were already on the edge of anger. If a child pulled a card first thing in the morning and it made him/her angry, they continued to spiral down until there were no cards left. Then what do you do after the cards are gone? I use a positive-focused behavior system. Praise is the most motivating tactic! I often whisper compliments in a child's ear. If I do need to whisper a redirection, it is also done privately. I learned that respect is something you earn by showing it to students first. I learned that loving goes farther than any other quality you can have. I know that students want to be in school, they want to learn. If something is not working for a child, there’s usually something you, as a teacher, need to change.

I believe in building community in the class. I don’t make all the rules. The kids make many of them. It’s based on the Responsive Classroom system. The kids are a family. They want to do the right thing because it feels good to them. Most of our learning takes place in centers. The students rotate through centers starting with one table and working around the room. They sit in groups at tables, with a common supply box for each table. They don’t have their own desks and are not assigned seats at a table. This encourages all students to learn to work together. Soon into the school year, they know the routines and are quite independent workers. This independence frees me to work on individualized instruction with small groups.

I like a spacious open room. I need to have a clear view of all students from my small group table. I like to have all materials out and available for student use. I label everything in the room. When you have kids who can’t read well yet, or are English language learners, use pictures as well as words to label the room. When the students are ready, they will begin to connect the words to the pictures. If they are not ready, they have the visual support they need.

Abby Jacobs

Kindergarten teacher
Montgomery County, Maryland
abby1378@yahoo.com
Jacobs has taught workshops for incoming kindergarten teachers on how to set up a classroom.

View photos of her classroom

I try to make the classroom as logical as it can be for a five-year-old, so they can be productive without help. I use a lot of color-coding, and when I write a label, I write in language that the majority of them can read. Often instead of words I use drawings—images of pencils, glue sticks, and so on. My drawings aren’t great but they’re a visual reminder. Thirteen of my 15 are ESOL so I use pictures and color-coding a lot.

I’m a really organized person, and once they learn my system, there’s never a question about where things go back at the end of the day.

I put the reading corner far from the blocks because that’s loud.

Many new kindergarten teachers think they need a lot of things on the wall, but there’s a lot they can make with the students—a number line, for example. The kids and I create a picture dictionary, one letter at a time. It takes us 26 weeks to get to Z, but they have ownership of it.

My classroom is fairly empty at the beginning, but then the children’s work goes up. I use very little that’s store-bought.

Daniel Hutton

First grade teacher
Takoma Park Elementary School, Takoma Park, Maryland
Daniel_T_Hutton@mcpsmd.org

View photos of his classroom

For the first couple of years, you have to collect, collect, collect. It’s like a house: The first year you own it, it doesn’t look like the seventh. With color printers, the Internet, and digital cameras, you can do a lot. For your classroom library, go to book sales. Your collection will keep getting better till finally you have to give away books to make room.

I float. I have a desk, near the door, but I never sit at it.

I can see 95 percent of my kids all the time, in case I need to intervene. I don’t want any nooks and crannies—no hiding places.

My philosophy on materials is, don’t waste time passing stuff out. The tables get their own materials. The first couple of months, it’s not that smooth, but it gives them more independence, and it teaches them a lesson that‘s not in the curriculum.

The same with manipulatives: The kids know where go to get them.

Everything they need is low where they can reach it.

I want the first impression of my room to be brightness, colorfulness, open space so they don’t feel cluttered. I want it to look interesting.

Maria Boichin

6th and 7th grade French Immersion teacher (which includes a social studies class in French, hence the timeline in the photos)
Gaithersburg, Virginia
Maria_Boichin@mcpsmd.org

View photos of her classroom