Yesterday was my first day back in the classroom. OHHHH GOOOODDDNNNEESSSSSS! My head was spinning… so many idea’s….so many changes…. Where to start?! I have been spending all of August planning from home, creating and organizing. I also decided a few weeks ago to change my daily schedule around and send my kids to the 5th/6th grade lunch rather than the 4th grade like I did last year. With all these changes, it made serious changes on my time blocks IN the classroom.
Today I arranged about half of my furniture. I did some serious rearranging that I was NOT planning on doing. I showed up in a dress and flip flops.. not exactly good for furniture moving.. but oh well I still got it rearranged 🙂 I seriously rearranged one corner of my room. (The bulletin board will be changed too!)
During the afternoon work centers, I will be incorporating listening centers. Look for a post in the future about how I test student’s for comprehension during listening center time!
For now… I wanted to share how I set up my BRAND NEW listening center my district ordered for me 🙂 Super Excited!
I have the CD/Tape player hidden behind a file cabinet pinned in by the kidney group table. The way I set up my furniture is completely strategic. I need to put highly desirable things (LIKE ELECTRONIC DEVICES!!!) out of kids reach so that it is not a distraction. I also set it up so that I do not have to worry about plugging it it when I need it. With this set-up… it is ready to go!
When it is time to use the listening center, all we have to do is pull out the blue tub (it looks purple in the picture…) with headphones out on the table. It is already connected to the CD Player/tape player so no time is wasted! Once the kids have their headphones on, press PLAY!
I attached the headphone connector piece (whatever you call it) to the tub with duck tape so that kids can’t take it out and pay with it. When it is time to clean up, it’s simple, just throw the four headphones in the tub and put the tub back where I got it! No need to plug or unplug anything!
Here is the best part…. You can’t see ANYTHING unless you are seated at the blue table! I am hoping this proves to minimize the distractions/behaviors. Here is the view from the back of my room… can you see anything exciting???? NOPE! I am such a dork… this excited me way to much!
