Principal Walder's Monday Memo
For the week of April 28th
Have you thought about flexible seating?
As we start thinking about next year, I want to share with you a story from the current North Dakota Teacher of the Year, Kayla Delzer- Dornfield from @TopDogTeaching. Part of the article below is from her blog, but click on the link to learn more about her classroom and how she uses flexible seating. I know it is not for everybody, but some aspects may be helpful in accommodating all unique student needs in your classroom.
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It’s been my dream to make my 2nd grade classroom look more like a “Starbucks for kids”, and less like, well, a classroom.
Think about when you go to Starbucks to complete some work. Why do you choose to work there? Where do you choose to sit? I usually gravitate towards the comfy seating choices like the couches and big chairs, and yet, I see people choose the tables and chairs over and over again. Regardless, when you walk into Starbucks, you have a choice. You get to choose where you sit. No one checks you in and directs you to a spot, telling you that you must sit there for the remainder of the day to do your work. If you need to get up, walk around, or choose a different seat, you are free to do so.
As I sat in our local Starbucks this past summer, I looked around and thought—why can’t my classroom look like this?
But how did I get to this point? Let me take you through some common questions I get asked about classroom redesign—so that hopefully, you can do the same.
What did your process look like?
Before I even purchased a single thing, I thought about why I was doing a classroom redesign. If we truly want to prepare our students for the real world, we need to put them in responsive, dynamic environments that reflect life outside of a traditional classroom. And what’s that life outside like? Full of choices, where adults are responsible for their own learning. As a college student visiting my classroom once said, “It’s like you’re treating them like little adults.” And as my teaching has changed, my classroom design needed to change right along with it.
After consulting Erin Klein, a classroom design guru who has been “ditching her desks” to avoid “the cemetery effect” for a few years now and sharing her experiments on her blog, I thought about my classroom and the traditional chairs and tables I was given—and I came up with a plan.
Looking around my classroom, I quickly realized that I had far too much furniture, so I got rid of four tables, my huge teacher desk, 20 traditional chairs and a file cabinet. Next, I started looking for resources to redesign and repurpose what I already had. I looked around my house and in my storage closet to pull some pieces that I wasn’t using, and scavenged Hobby Lobby for some new purchases.
What came out of that was flexible seating and open floor space: I thought about my students who would prefer to stretch out on the floor, and I purchased yoga mats and bath rugs for them to lay out on and work. Simultaneously, my fellow educators contributed extra clipboards they weren’t using so students would be able to write just as easily.
Now, I have a large, open area for whole group instruction and five remaining tables, each designed with a specific purpose:
- a small group instruction whiteboard table with stools
- a stand-and-work table with no chairs
- a crate seats table
- a sit-on-the-floor area with core disks or pillows and work table (see to the right)
- a stability ball chairs table
http://www.topdogteaching.com/2016/03/why-21st-century-classroom-may-remind.html
PLC Topic This Week:
We will be meeting briefly during PLC this week to review teacher suggestions for classroom placements for the 2019- 2020 School Year. I have moved all the PLCs to Monday for us.
The school assignments for Venture and Legacy have been split and Karen has helped to put them all into a Google Spreadsheet for us.
Please bring your computer and come with any questions you may have about this. Thank you!
Dr. Walder's Schedule
Monday:
- 8:45 Parent Meeting
- 9:30- 10:15 4th Grade PLC at Mrs. Rhead's Room
- 10:20- 11:05 3rd Grade PLC at Mr. Westhoff's Room
- 12:30- 1:15 2nd Grade PLC in Mrs. Underberg's Room
- 1:20- 2:05 1st PLC in Mrs. Westhoff's Room
- 2:10- 2:55 Kindergarten PLC in Mrs. Snell's Room
Tuesday:
- Out of the Office for FBA/ BSP Training
Wednesday:
- 4th and 3rd Grade Music Rehearsal
- 2:00 Legacy Admin Meeting
- 3:30 IEP
Thursday:
- 7:40 - 8:10 am Teacher Meeting in Ms. Rederth's Room (No computers needed.)
- 4th and 3rd Grade Music Rehearsal
- 3:30- 4:00 '19-'20 Legacy Teachers' Meeting in Ms. Rederth's Room
- 6:15 pm 4th and 3rd Grade Music Concert
Friday:
- 2:00 Interventionist PLC
Contact Dr. Walder
Email: Samantha.Walder@k12.sd.us
Website: https://www.teaschools.k12.sd.us/
Location: Tea, SD, USA
Phone: 6058817381
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeaAreaLegacy/
Twitter: @swalder7