Building a Personalized Classroom

The first few days of school may sometimes feel overwhelming both for teachers and for students. Time flies and before you know it, it’s snack, recess, lunch and dismissal and you’re left in an empty classroom wondering if the day really even began.

These beginning few days are an important time to set the standards for your classroom. “Standards” is often a word associated with rigid academic goals and data collection. But standards are simply expectations, and when presented properly, the standards of a classroom can define the space as a child-centered, creative and trust-worthy space. The standard is that your students will see themselves in the classroom whether looking up, down, left or right. The standard is that your students will feel welcome, regardless of their interests. The standard is creating a classroom that sends the message that your curiosity, your hard work, your perseverance and your bravery are valued.

In my last post, Cut the Cute, I mentioned that students should be able to see themselves in their learning space, and that you need very little to start the year with a “ready” classroom. In the first few weeks of school there are a handful activities that I have done with my class each year. As we move into our third grade unit on culture, we define these as our traditions. They’re low-stakes, community building, easy to complete tasks that encourage your students to build their own classroom. The ideas highlighted below are not revolutionary or new. They’ve been shared, collected, refined and personalized over the years. You can read more about setting up your classroom layout and resources at Investigating Choice Time. Below are a few small ways that you can create a space where your students see themselves.

Check In Cards

The most important job of a teacher is to keep your students safe. Part of that responsibility is ensuring that you know where all of your students are at all times. Remember that most teachers have 20, 30 or more children in one space at any given time. Having a space for students to check in and out of the classroom can help students feel a sense of belonging and can help you and other staff members locate all students at all times.

Within the first two days of school, we always create mini-self portraits that double as our check-in cards. We read aloud one of our many books about identity and take some time to look in our classroom mirror. Students create their self-portraits, including any details about their physical appearance or interests that they’d like. We laminate these cards and attach a small magnet to the back so it can easily be moved between different check-in spaces throughout the day (present, in classroom, bathroom, water, with an adult etc)

Student Photos

Our class participates in numerous small groups throughout the school day. The easiest way to manage student center choices has always been a trusty pocket chart. Rather than having teachers write student names on an index card, or printing out each name in a “cute” font on card-stock, we always use student photos, printed to be about 3″x3.” These photos show students that they are a valued member of the class, and that the classroom belongs to them. Throughout the year, we typically retake these photos 2 or 3 more times, which provides a magnificent example of how much our students have grown with us throughout the year.

Class Labels

In the first few days of school, our students always explore our classroom. Although we loop from second to third grade together, our class is often slightly rearranged to account for changes in resources and bigger bodies. As students explore, they take note of spaces that are new and those that are familiar favorites. We create a class list of these spaces and students volunteer to create a label for each space so that we can all easily find what we need. You’d be amazed at how these labels give students a sense of ownership over the room. They WILL remember that the label reading “clock” next to the class clock was their proud creation.

Class Calendar

One of the most costly items that teachers often purchase is an intricate and complicated class calendar/weather reporting area for morning meeting. These calendars, although often colorful and thematically designed, do not represent your students. We start each year in second grade with blank number cards in a pocket chart. We quickly recognize that our calendar could use some personalization. After reading The Big Orange Splot, a book about uniqueness, students design their own cards for the calendar, including days of the week, months of the year, numbers 1-31 and their own individual birthday cards to include each month. Some students write numbers on their own and others use cards with numbers printed on them for support.

Classroom Door Design

The first thing that your students see when approaching your classroom will be your class door. This should be a space that welcomes students and lets them know that this is their space, not yours. The classes in my school are all named after native trees in our local park. Each year, we begin our class door with a blank tree trunk and branches. After reviewing the story of The Big Orange Splot, each student creates their own Tulip tree leaf to add to our door. These leaves stay on our front door for the entirety of the school year, sometimes supplemented by photos from our most recent studies.

At the end of each school year, it’s a tradition in our classroom to transition our Tulip tree door leaves to a HUGE Tulip tree that we have “growing” in our classroom. This tree proudly displays the leaves that have been made by every student and community member (teacher, paraprofessional) that has been a part of our class over the last six years. The tree proudly grows in the corner of our classroom and we make sure to let students know that the leaves on this tree represent that this classroom will always be a home that welcomes them any day.

Cubby and Chair Labels

As a child, it may sometimes feel like there are very few spaces that are meant just for you. In collaborative classrooms, students may often share tables with others, making personal space a bit hard to come by. In our class, there are two spaces that each student had exclusively to themselves, their hallway cubbies and their chairs/seat sacks. To start the year, each student designs labels for these spaces. Although a simple and quick activity, encouraging students to design their labels and manage these spaces on their own demonstrates trust in their abilities and proves that their creativity and imagination are valued.