My New Room

Have I said how much I love my new classroom? I love it!  I always thought that the old place, which was a double unit, with 50 children using it at a time, was busy and sometimes seemed chaotic. But we made the best of it, as you have to. It is only after being in this room for a few weeks, that I have realised that it does not just make a small difference to everything, but a huge one! For a start, I now have control over my classroom-I am not talking about the children here, but how I feel. I can make decisions about how I think it is best to do things, without having to compromise, and so suddenly am enjoying doing displays again, arranging the classroom, and thinking about how it can best help the children in my class to achieve, without having to worry about the other class too. (Sounds harsh I know but I already have 36 in my own class!) I do talk to the staff I work with about things, and listen and incorporate their ideas, but it is easier to do this with three other people than six.

 My crochet monster and octopus have new jobs-as key rings for the gate and my drawer key. They are so big they are unlikely to get lost.
The second reason I am finding it so much better, is how the children are in class. They are calmer, there is less running indoors, and the atmosphere is busy but allows the adults to focus on things more without the distractions we used to get in the old place. If anything is going wrong, it is easy to see in this smaller space, and to intervene quickly before things get out of hand. It is easy to stop them by ringing a bell-I can see everyone now! We have walls and a door! At my school, I have never worked in a fully enclosed classroom-it used to be all open plan, and even though some doors and walls were put in over the years, the nature of the building design meant that often your classroom was a corridor to somewhere else. There is nothing more annoying or distracting than people using your room to walk through, have conversations at the edge of, and push dinner trolleys through.

 The third reason I am loving it so much, is that I can set up all the little story and rhyme opportunities I want to, provide things such as small toy cars, or phonics resources, and know that they are not all going to go missing! If they do it is easy to search this room, whereas the old place was huge, and had so many hiding places it was impossible.

 So on Friday night, the five speckled frogs who have lived in my car for a while now, were given there own sparkly log.

 The speckles are felt circles you use to stop things scratching tables. I have kept them for ages, waiting to find a good use-speckles 1-5 are that use!

 The play people have moved into the big house, ready for Monday. What they don't realise is that I bought a jail yesterday in the charity shop! And a bank for them to rob! I think Grandad did it.

 This great bookend was in my 'p' bag to illustrate 'push', but now he can do his real job as the classroom has lovely deep windowsills.

 We brought the pigs and houses with us to make this display. I wrote the story and then read it with the children before putting it up, as there are quite a few words they can read now, and I wanted them to know what the story said. They liked the 'run!' part best! The pigs have such cute expressions!

 The pigs and bad Mr Wolf were very popular last week, and, as I say, did not go missing at all! Next week they have got the three bears. I got this little set on ebay-for something like £2.99!

 This book is one of their (and my) all time favourites. Full of adventure and brilliantly illustrated with photgraphs.

The other main reason the separate room is better, is that we can work with the children in our class only, thus making assessment and teaching easier. We do work with the other class outside, and there has been a little mixing in the rooms, but that has worked ok. I think the new school had an all in one classroom again, but after our experiences down here, it is going to be split into two. Hurray!