BIG PICTURE
This would be my favourite picture from my favourite room. Look at that sun streaming in the windows. That's what the 29 Grade Five kids walked into each day and I was very proud of its setup. It was a big room too. Sigh... I miss it!
The string across the front of the room was made ultra colourful by cutting lei necklaces and winding them around the string. Even at the start of the year when I hadn't hung anything off the line, it looked great and lifted the room with colour and brightness. Two copies of the brain gym posters got hung on this line so you could see them from the front and back of the classroom.
When I taught in this downstairs room, the 5/6 class was working very closely with the 5/6 class next door - so much so that both the kids and teachers were constantly going in and out of each others' rooms. As a result we had to be aware of traffic pathways and spaces for all 58 kids to sit together at times. The rooms have been rennovated now and there's demountable doors between our rooms - which are usually open. The kids from both rooms now sit wherever they like - according to what they're doing, and teaching groups happen in both ends of the rooms. But I did like the room before the rennovations as well!
The rennos. We had one day to set up between the builders handing over the classroom and the kids moving in. Bit of a rush but we did it. Not enough pin up either but we survive - there's demountable doors tucked away to the right that can be used to close off each room. We've brought them out and opened them in a zig zag pattern so there's still plenty of flow through between the two rooms but we can use the display space on the doors. See the October 2011 section to see how the space turned out.