Slice of Life Day 28 & Celebrate~ this week! Classroom Spring Cleaning and Rearrangements

Today's post will merge two of my digital communities.

Thank you to Two Writing Teachers for hosting the Slice of Life March challenge.  I am joining other bloggers and writing every day in March.  Please visit their site to read other slices and please remember to let the blogger know you read their post, share the love in the comments! 

&

Ruth Ayers of Discover. Play. Build. invites  us to share weekly celebrations, big or small, on her blog. This week I am jumping in, celebrating my opportunity to work alongside a preservice teacher and practice my OLW~ Listen!   Thanks Ruth for hosting! 

I want to celebrate  Mary Kay's thoughtfulness in rearranging our rooms and the arrangement and the promise it holds.  We went into school on Friday to tidy up and make a few adjustments.  I let Mary Kay make all the decisions. I listened as she explained her thoughts for wanting to move something and then helped  make the move.  

• Rotated the carpet to improve student comfort in looking at the large screen while seated not he floor.
• Moved island (which houses paper, dry erase tools and other writing supplies) to allow more open feel when entering the room and student accessibility in gathering tools. 
• Cleaned out tanks from previously living organisms (Yes, our mealworms actually died, of natural causes, I was sure you couldn't kill mealworms…)
• Added larger table to improve use of document camera in displaying work and books.
• Moved treasure chest of books (houses class favorites) to a safer location to prevent lid from falling shut. 
• Added poetry books to tables and  physical science books to display shelf to activate prior learning and front load upcoming studies. 
• Switched out markers for colored pens to improve legibility of writing. (Markers are still available, but not on tables.)

Mary Kay experienced first hand how one little change turns into a few more little changes and a few more decisions.  Mary Kay was thoughtful about traffic patterns, seating, work space for small groups and individuals and student preferences and keeping the balance with her needs as the lead teacher.   I am eager to see how the kids respond Monday!