Classroom DIY

A Practical Step-by-Step Guide to Setting up a Creative Learning Environment

Maija Leimanis-Wyatt, Adam King

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781135176761
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Setting up the classroom is a fundamental part of a teacher's job, as a well-planned, aesthetically pleasing environment encourages children to learn and helps with classroom management. However, knowing how to create this environment is not instinctive and teachers are given little guidance, yet are expected to create a stimulating environment that is conducive to learning. The task can often be daunting and time-consuming, and teachers don't know where to begin.

Classroom DIY provides teachers with the answer to these problems. A practical, step-by-step guide, written from firsthand experience, Classroom DIY will enable any primary teacher to make a spectacular job of setting up their room using any materials they have available. Guiding teachers through the process of setting up their space from planning to practice, this book includes advice on:

• laying out the room: what furniture to use and where best to position it
• organising areas for specific subjects, including maths, literacy, science and humanities
• how to create an inspiring classroom on a budget: recycling items for use in the classroom and the homemade approach
• how the learning environment can inspire and motivate pupils to learn, taking into account multiple intelligences and routines
• meeting the expectations of senior management teams.

With 'teachers' tales' from a range of individuals in different schools and case studies illustrating solutions to teachers' specific problems with their classrooms, this book is must have for all newly qualified and practising teachers looking to inspire their pupils to learn through their classroom environment.

PART 1
Getting started

INTRODUCTION

A rude awakening

I began my first job as a newly qualified teacher raring to go. Of course I was thrilled about having a group of eager young minds to inspire, but what really excited me was the prospect of finally having my own classroom to set up just as I’d always pictured. The Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from the 1990s, Kindergarten Cop, is what springs to mind – brightly coloured, kid-friendly furniture, cushions galore, eye-catching wall displays and endless inspiring resources carefully positioned around the spacious classroom. No longer a student working in another teacher’s room, I couldn’t wait to have a place of my own to nurture.

So when I naively ventured into my first classroom thinking I would find a blank canvas on which to create my interpretation of a good classroom, I couldn’t have been further from the mark. I discovered that the classroom to be my home from home for the next ten months was an utter disaster. Not only had I been allocated the worst room in the school (which is saying something in an under-funded, challenging inner-city school) but also, the previous teacher had stripped it of anything that may have proved useful. The paint was peeling, the windows dirty and the furniture looked like odds and ends from a car boot sale.

Crooked display boards remained plastered in staples from years gone by and there wasn’t so much as a clean surface in sight.

As I stood there, my excitement quickly turned to shock and then anxiety when the realisation hit home. I had planned to cover my display boards, arrange the furniture, possibly even look through resources and walk out of there a few hours later well on my way to being prepared for the first day of school. But, transforming this uninspiring space into a carefully laid out, stimulating environment for children seemed unmanageable.

So where should I go from here as I accepted the challenge that lay ahead?

Why bother?

As a teacher, your classroom is your domain. It’s how people first see you – the first port of call for the children, other teachers and visitors. What you do with it says a lot about you, and it’s hard not to feel that your competence is judged by how you set the classroom up. It conveys the message that you’re organised or disorganised, that you’re creative or not. A lot of pressure can exist. You want it to be ready on time and you want to look like you know what you’re doing.

At university, we’re filled with ideals about how our classrooms must be stimulating, yet calm; how children should feel welcomed and inspired, and experience a sense of ownership for their ‘home from home’. We learn that the careful display of children’s work should provoke thoughts and questions and the set-up of resources provide on-going opportunities for independent learning.

The reality is that you get into your classroom and after a while you stop trying. It’s overwhelming, hard to get inspiration, and there’s just too much to do. You’re constantly trying to work out how your time is best spent because even if you stay until the caretaker is standing at your door shaking his keys, there still aren’t enough hours in the day. Do you spend that time after school planning lessons and marking so that you’re organised for the next day, or do you prepare a display? And it can’t just be any old display; it must tick all the right boxes. Teaching assistants can be an invaluable help, but the design of the classroom and knowing what you want to achieve with display areas is still your responsibility.

Learn from my experience

I did get that classroom to a standard good enough to receive the children on the first day of school, but I learnt the hard way, making plenty of mistakes. With each new classroom, I refined my tricks and discovered short cuts until I produced this seamless, step-by-step process for putting together a really great classroom, not just aesthetically but practically.

What you will get from this guide

Follow this guide and you’ll have the fast track to a stimulating and purposeful classroom.

In a nutshell, this guide will:

• give you a focused starting point and clear steps forward

• show you how to use the time you have allocated for classroom set-up effectively

• help you use the space and furniture in your room to its full potential

• assist you in creating an environment that encourages creative thinking, is conducive to learning and well-organised

• show you how to make an impact.

Chapter 1
THE BIG PICTURE

When faced with a room in disarray, full of unfamiliar items and furniture, it’s hard to know where to begin. It’s about acting smartly; the key is to find out what’s available to you and then do everything you can to get it.

Teacher tales

Every teacher knows that if you’re new, you should expect the least desirable room in the entire school. Karen, a teacher with 15 years’ experience, describes the situation in her school: ‘Before school breaks up for the summer, it’s pretty tense. We all bid for a classroom for the coming school year, which involves begging to stay put or to move somewhere more favourable. Then there’s the hounding, occasional bribery and downright pleading until it’s settled. Inevitably, the new, unknown teacher gets lumbered with the room that we’ve all suffered and will never return to!’

Two steps forward, one step back

In my first year, setting up the classroom was a painstakingly laborious process that I would never wish anyone to replicate. Not knowing the school or staff, I did things the hard way, and only later did I find out vital information that could have saved me time at the outset.

Two full days were spent wasting precious time and energy shifting furniture across the room, only to realise it...

Table of contents

• CONTENTS
• ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
• PART 1 Getting started
• PART 2 Setting up
• PART 3 Finishing the job