most teachers (and by most teachers, we mean us, deanna and alyssa) like to feel a certain amount of control within their classroom, which means that it might come natural to spend countless days at school before the year even starts putting up your bulletin board paper, making cute welcome signs for your door, and labeling everything around the room in your favorite font with a picture to match. similar to alyssa, it took deanna several years to realize that all those “pretty things” are not as useful or meaningful for kids as we would hope. little by little each year, she slowly started relinquishing control of how her classroom looked, which opened up more space for kids to gain ownership of how their classroom would look, sound, and feel over the course of the year.
this year, deanna still went in days before school started to get everything ready, but instead of going crazy with laminating/cutting/taping/repeat, she sat down to plan different ways that students could contribute to making the classroom the special place that it always is. instead of having the never-ending “things to make” list, she started writing a “kids can make” list. here are some of the things she has been trading off that feeling of control for that amazing sense of student ownership.
get rid of that wallpaper
charts can sometimes start feeling like wallpaper when no one seems to use them anymore. take it down, take it down! charts, or anything that takes up that valuable real estate on your walls at students’ eye-level, should be used A LOT, by you and by the kids!
create charts WITH your kids. not only does this help them own the information on the chart, but also it’s a great time to work on representational drawing! you can even throw in some interactive/shared writing.
have students draw pictures to match the words on a chart or make copies of their work to show the use of certain strategies.
a cause for celebration
at our school, we hang up our students’ published writing in the hallway for everyone to see, as well as other pieces of student work. we also include a short blurb about what the kids were working on when producing the hanging pieces so that outsiders can get a glimpse into the learning that takes place in our classroom.
instead of typing up a wordy, albeit “pretty”, blurb to post alongside the work, deanna started asking her students what they worked really hard on during the writing unit – or whatever it was that they were studying. together, we crafted a letter to the readers (the students wanted to be sure we included everyone, so we addressed our letter to kids AND grown ups), telling them about the big learning that happened.
deanna’s class brainstormed a few big ideas from the first writing unit and co-authored a letter to the readers through interactive writing.
students can be teachers, too
what’s better than when your students are motivated to make their own useful charts and signs to help others in their classroom? during choice time some of the kindergarteners in deanna’s class have been excited about making things to use in the classroom. deanna celebrated and encouraged this work by giving the students an opportunity to be the teacher. they shared their signs with the class and decided where they wanted to hang it – the place that would be most useful.
now that our little guys have become writers they will start labeling things around the room, too! the many different centers, bins, and areas in our classroom will be clearly (or not-so-clearly) labeled with kids’ drawing and writing.
this student clearly owns the “get ready to read” chart – he made his own during choice time!
what are some ways that you are inviting your students to take a more active role in creating the way their classroom looks, sounds, and feels? let us know by commenting below or by tweeting at us @primaryperks, @dee4soul, @alyssanewman.
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