Arranging your classroom in a way that works for you and your students is an important first step toward a successful year. Here are some ideas to consider as you begin a new school year — whether you’re setting up a classroom for the first time or looking at one with fresh eyes after the summer.
Have your daily schedule visible on Day 1. Post your daily schedule where students can easily view it. Predictability is reassuring for students.
Prep your organizational system and plan how you’ll teach it. Most veteran teachers, from pre-K to high school, rely on some form of
color-coding to stay organized. Natalie Sidarous, a 4th-grade ELA teacher at Staten Island’s PS 1 in Tottenville, prepares slides that help her teach the grade’s color-coded folder system beginning the first day. That way, she says, “if someone’s not listening or needs a little extra time,” they have the visual representation on the board.
Misty Santo, a pre-K teacher at PS 133 in Queens’ Bellerose/Floral Park section, says a color-coded classroom is critical for students who aren’t reading yet. “It’s all about organization from Day 1,” she says. “I choose three colors for their folders, and the folders match the bins in my classroom.” If a student gets a red folder, their lunch box, snack and folder go into a red bin with their name and picture on it. The folders are also labeled with the student’s name and photo. “I use the same system for the bins that hold their emergency clothes,” she says. “This is how they become independent.”
Sandi Schwartz, an ELA teacher at W.H. Maxwell Career and Technical HS in East New York, Brooklyn, buys accordion folders for each of her classes, with the sections color-coded to help her quickly file papers as students hand their homework or writing projects to her throughout the day.
Consider the flow of foot traffic in your room. Envision what your routines are going to look like in motion and how you can avoid bottlenecks. In the morning, Sidarous has her students turn in their homework and notices, leave their water bottles at the “Hydration Station,” hang their backpacks and return to their seats, all while moving through the room in a clockwise motion. Her room is arranged as the “five boroughs,” a setup that orients her students when she’s giving instructions. “I tell them, ‘Don’t go in the Hudson,’” she says.
Be prepared to pull up stakes if necessary. Schwartz recalls that one year she was moved three times before the first day of school. “Don’t be possessive of your classroom,” she advises. For educators who don’t have their own room, she recommends obtaining an inexpensive rolling cart, stocked with essentials, that can be wheeled from room to room. (For high school ELA, staplers and hand sanitizer are a must, she says.)
Plan your seating arrangements, but don’t get attached. “Every single person who comes into your room will have a different idea of what your room should look like,” says Schwartz, “but you have to do what works for you.” Plan a seating arrangement, but be prepared to switch it up as you get to know your students — for example, you’ll quickly learn which students need to be separated.“You can’t be so rigid that you’re not willing to experiment,” says Schwartz.
Allow time and prep a lesson for social-emotional support from the start. “Let students express how they feel,” says Sidarous. The first day of school is “a nerve-wracking day, both for teachers and kids, and you want them to feel comfortable and welcome the first day.”
Whatever you do, says Schwartz, be patient with yourself: “There’s no perfect classroom, there’s no perfect setup. Take it one step at a time.”