New Ideas!

A few days ago I was lucky enough to go on a "learning walk" with a few other K1 teachers and our early childhood coach.  We visited 3 classrooms in 2 schools in our district, and it was so inspiring!  The teachers had done things I had not thought of, and were using materials in new and interesting ways.  It also gave me many ideas about organization, parent communication, displaying student work and much more!

Here are a few of my favorite ideas from the learning walk:

• Tape a picture of each child onto a block in the block area.  The kids in this classroom loved having their "friends" visit whatever they were building in the block area.  It was also a great literacy opportunity because the teacher wrote the child's name on the back of the block. 

• Call your art area the "Art Studio."  Display art materials beautifully in clear containers, and be sure to include items from nature too.  It is a little hard to tell from the pictures, but the Art Studio was super inspiring, and all of the kids were flocking to it.  Here is what the art area looked like:

• In your parent engagement area, keep a binder that shows each child's progress.  This binder had a tab for each child.  The teacher had included one self portrait per month, and you could see amazing progress from month to month!  I am definitely going to do this next year.

More ideas coming soon!


*I hope that the fabulous teachers we visited will not mind me sharing their great ideas.  They were too inspiring not to!