Teacher Swap

The theme of this week's Teacher Swap hosted by Jen from Following the Footsteps is to show pictures of our classrooms.

I have pictures from both my classroom in Oregon and the classrooms I will be working in here in Germany. It is interesting to see the differences.

I started last school year off with the desks in a U formation. I really liked it, but it was a bit tight for space in my room. I rearranged the furniture in that room so many times because I could never get it just the way I wanted it. Finally, at the middle of last year, I arranged it in a way that I liked best of all.

This was a my carpet time area where I did most of my instruction. The wall showing was my calendar wall and to the right was my large whiteboard. The colored rectangles had sight words written on them. I made a "rainbow trail" of words written on craft foam and velcro-ed to the carpet so that my students would have to hop on the trail and read the words on the way to the carpet each day.

My classroom library

I definitely acquired a lot more books over the course of last year because there were buckets lining that whole shelf by the end of the year. When I get my own room again, I would like to more thoroughly organized my library by levels and themes so the children would be able to easily identify what books they were interested in/were appropriate for their reading levels and they would be able to put them back where they came from.

Room 3S- Germany

Room 3K-Germany

I have seen some major difference between the classrooms at FIS in Germany and other classrooms I know from the US. In Germany, there are no built in cabinets for storage, just free standing bookshelves and the classroom "libraries" pale in comparison to those of my previous school. One of the rooms I am going to help in had only two very small bins for the entire library! In Germany much of the furniture/bins come from Ikea and the classrooms seem bare. At FIS, some walls are painted in very bright colors like lime green and orange, but overall the classrooms look pretty stark. Surely teachers decorate, but the rooms just seem different to me and not as inviting. Additionally, the teachers have an office/workroom where their desks and computers are located so they do not have as much "stuff" in the classroom itself. There are smaller teacher desks and phones in the classrooms, but their work and planning is done elsewhere. The children also store their items in the hallway. The rooms do not contain cubbies rather there are hooks outside the classroom for jackets and backpacks. I guess that is part of the reason why they seem less cluttered, there isn't as much stuff in them!

I always enjoy getting my room ready at the beginning of the year and although I have been helping the third grade teachers prep their rooms, it's just not the same!