New Adventures

Inspired by colleagues I've decided to document my journey this coming year. 

About Me:

I am a grade 4/5 Montessori teacher.  This will be my 13th year teaching.  I am in a Masters of Educational Leadership class and plan to do my research project on the effects of classroom design on my teaching and my students learning. 

Interest in Design:

For my last master's paper I looked at physical organization.  I really found it interesting how schools are laid out and how classrooms can be designed.  I was lent a book called The Third Teacher from my colleague H and I LOVED the book.  I was determined to start thinking outside my four walls.
This past year I had a very challenging class.  15 boys and 8 girls all very high energy.  My classroom was LOUD and most of my time was spent dealing with behaviour issues.  But then I started questioning why?  I spent half my day asking kids to take hats off....why?  I spent a lot of time asking kids to sit...why?  What was I thinking?  Do kids really need to sit?  Do hats really need to be off?  Hmmmm. 
I also have space limitations.  Our school used to be a California school, with outdoor access and NO hallways.  Year ago hallways were added, shrinking the classrooms significantly.  Apparently, according to a colleague of mine our classes are 20 square feet below ministry standard.  So, faced with that, how do I fit all those kids in?  Gotta think outside the walls!
This year full day K was introduced to our school.  I was inspired by their use of outdoor space.  Our principal created garden spaces for all, and fenced in areas for children to explore.  I am lucky enough to have an outside door and an area of grass.  It's small but it has me thinking, why can't my kids just go outside to do work?  They were always trying to escape to be out there anyway! 

My friend G has a great blog all about his thinking about teaching and design.  I'm so inspired by this!  So I plan to document what I will change and what I have created. 

What have I bought and gotten rid of?  Well last year I bought an Expedit shelf unit from Ikea.  It is wood and holds TONS of books.  It fits right under the white board perfectly.  I was so happy with it that I have purchased two more for September and will put them all along one wall. 

I'm the kind of person who likes all her shelves around the edges and NOTHING in the middle of the room.  I love the wide open feel of that.  I used to have shelves creating little spaces for reading or math, but now I like the open feel. 

This year my library books were all alphabetized by the kids, by author's last name.  I found this was a great idea because the kids really liked keeping it in order.  After all they had done the hard work of alphabetizing it and they got angry if kids dumped books!  I hope to keep this this same and have the kids teach the newer kids how to keep it nice and neat.

My large cabinet is used for my storage.  If you saw inside it you would lose your mind!!  It is very well organized.  I have all my arts and craft supplies binned and sorted too. 

The biggest change for me will be the removal of ALL DESKS.  I started thinking mid year...why do I have desks?  What are they really for?  I spend all my time taking toys away from kids who hide them in desks, asking kids to find work they have stuffed in the desk, cleaning out desks, having children hide books in their while I'm talking to them.  Desks really were my pain.  As a child I hated these desks.  You have to bend awkwardly to get stuff out of them.  Complete waste of space.  SO I decided I will remove them and put tables in.  So I have 8 trapezoid tables ready to go.  They are all wood finish tops and I plan to put a plant on each.  I have also purchased a raspberry shag rug.  I know...it's coloured and wild but I just fell in love with it and felt it would be a fun place to sit and learn!  It's also easy for kids to clean.  I do not trust the ancient vacuums that the custodians are forced to use. 

I also loved the idea of Ikea lamps replacing my horridly unreliable flourecent lights.  Unfortunately my back window is barred up and lets in very little natural light.  BUT I am lucky enough to have 6 outlets in my ceiling beams because my room was a computer room.  So bring on the globe lights baby! 

Montessori:

My other love is Montessori.  I teach it, I live it....I breathe it.  BUT the biggest problem I have is that I am confined to public school schedules.  Montessori really thrives on having a very flexible schedule.  With bells and structured PE, LIbrary, Music etc...this is a hard thing.  I also spend half my year questioning myself.  Should I use textbooks, no yes, no yes.....back and forth!  Well this year I have a plan.  Believe in Montessori wholely.  Go with it and do it! 

I just ordered a set of math cards that goes exactly with my materials and the age 9-12 curriculum.  In my classroom children work at their own pace.  Some do grade 3 level math while some do grade 7. 

In Language I have always believed in free writing time.  You can write whatever you want, poems, comic books, stories, essays....as long as YOU want to do it.  I was an author as a child, I loved story writing, but I was given the freedom to do it by many wonderful teachers.  I want my kids to have the freedom to write.

Now Cultural is where the problems lie.  Cultural is anything other than Language or Math.  So this year I tried this station approach and failed...failed hard.  I did it with the Human Body unit.  I thought I'd create a station for each system, and have hands on stuff at each.  Oh I was gung ho baby!  But when I got to the end of the unit I gave them the standard paper test.  HUGE MISTAKE...half the class failed.  So why was it that they could tell me stuff about the human body but not write it down.  Well I taught them hands on...but tested them with paper...WHAT!!!  So lesson learned.  Hands on is good, but my old methods of collecting data of their knowledge..did not work. 

I also love project based learning.  The problem I have with it is that they love to take them home and then I have half student/half parent projects.  How do I tell what they really did?  But I don't have enough computers for the kids to research daily IN the classroom.  Catch 22.  I will need to work on that.  I need more library space and more computer time.  I need to match the project time to my given computer/library time and use the librarian for help on this too.  I have plans I do....


Final thoughts

As July begins I'm thinking and reading and recording as much as possible.  I really want to make this next school year exciting for my students.  I want to work on the NOISE level in my class.  I am a loud person, so it starts with me.  I want to spend September working on how to get along with others, how to solve problems and how to respect ourselves and our space.  My kids often have been with each other for the entire schooling time.  So they really know each other's buttons and it causes huge behaviour issues.  I've already spoken to my support teachers on how to set up behaviour plans for students in September.  I have at least 4 kids who need them.  BUT will my new design and my rededication to Montessori ease these issues?  We will have to see.

Have a great summer and please comment with ideas or any help you have!  Photos soon.