As promised, here’s a first look at my classroom! The floors were done last week, so everything was in a new place. This actually was quite helpful, as I was able to see the room arranged in a different way. It was by no means a set up that would work, but it offered another perspective. (It reminded me of the scene in Mary Poppins Returns when Meryl Streep’s world turns upside down and they sang about it!)
Here are some photos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, there are a lot of chairs and everything is thrown everywhere. What to do?

Step 1: Get rid of superfluous items! I discarded unnecessary chairs and decided to take the Orff instruments off of their stands. I am not completely convinced this was a great idea, but I need the space. I share the room with the children’s choir, so it isn’t just my stuff in there. Thankfully there isn’t that much that they need, but non-the-less, space is at a premium!

Step 2: Find as many shelving units as possible!! I found a large gray plastic shelving unit that I put most of the Orff instruments on while leaving the larger ones for the floor. (I did keep the stands for the bass metallophone and the bass xylophone, as I knew they would just make life easier!)

A couple of the xylophones were on small white shelving units with wheels. I was able to utilize those in different ways (pictured here with black arrows). The first shelf is part of the “drum center” and the other shelf is part of the “Orff Center”. In the second photo, you can also see the new gray shelving unit for the Orff instruments.

Step 3: Create mini centers! As you can see there are the two centers mentioned above and I added a literacy center, as well (of course!!!)

It is not completed yet, but I am excited that there is a white board and a shelving unit. I plan to keep all of our Note Knacks there (this isn’t everything, of course!), staff paper (five lined, as well as 3 lined), sentence strips, pencils and crayons. The board and magnetic staves will certainly come in handy!!

Step 4: Clean and decorate! I actually didn’t clean today, as I didn’t want to clean anything I wasn’t going to use. Once that is done, I will perfect the centers and decorate. As stated in the last post, I don’t want to add anything that is just for show; it has to be meaningful to the kids. I am keeping the colors to black and white and am happy to leave the bulletin board its natural color with a black and white border. For me, minimalism is the key.

I am expecting the room to be completed tomorrow, so I will keep you posted!! Please share your photos with us of your rooms on our Facebook Page! We would love to see them!!