Classroom Design: Sit in the Pupil's Seats

So, you've set up your classroom. There are displays a plenty, a Working Wall, room for you to move around, it looks good from the front: symmetrical, perpendicular and organised... WAIT! Sat in any of the children seats yet?

Can they see the board from where they are sat?

Can they actually read those displays?

Is there space when the chairs are slightly out with someone sat at them?

Can 30 children make their way around the room?

Remember: when you set up your room, think about the 30 small children who will use it. Walk around it, try to select items from drawers, sit in seats and look at displays. Can you pick up any issues before they find them?

Then, do this throughout the year. I often mark in a different child's seat each day, and while there, I look round the room at what they see.

Edit Your Friend's Facebook Posts

Some of my friends on Facebook and contacts on Twitter write beautifully and accurately, others (like me) have the off (:-)) typo here and there, while others just write with errors all over the place (your/you're - grrr).

This is a post by a friend of mine on his Facebook page. I took a screen capture and asked my class to correct it. We did it as an Exit Ticket activity.

So, spot an awful social media update, copy it, anonymise it, and give it to your class... 

Times Table (Ball Pit) Relay

After seeing something on Facebook, I did a times table relay with my class. On Twitter, Mr Dyson saw it and liked it. He challenged one of his teachers to 'do better'. That set me thinking!

@missnolan91 ...... you have to better this now https://t.co/kjSTKHlY5v

— Chris Dyson (@chrisdysonHT) July 10, 2017

And, today this is what we did...

I got mine and another teacher's times table sticks and the Velcro numbers that go on them;

I filled two recycle bins with ball pit balls;

Outside, I stood the sticks against a wall;

I put the Velcro numbers for a times table in each of the ball pits;

I then got the class, in turn, to run and collect a number, work out the times table and add it in the correct place on the stick. 

It. Was. Great!