Please don’t go into your classroom in August! Or at least in early August. I am the biggest nerd I know and even I don’t do that. But if you are starting in September with your first ever class and first ever classroom, then I know the excitement and fun involved with setting up your room!
So if this is the case then do get organised and enjoy it! I will be leaving it until our croke park day to do mine. I am already beginning to visualise how it will look and I am busy gathering pinterest ideas!
In mainstream you will need to have displays for numeracy, literacy, SESE, art and a word wall. You will also of course add to this with displays of children’s work etc but this is the bare minimum. Your displays will be different for each class grouping, but senior classes may have a fraction wall, then fractions with equivalent percentages and decimals, a section for tables, the rules for measuring area, etc. Some maths displays should stay up all year round and others will change according to the chapter you are on.
Literacy is the same- have samples of whichever writing genre you are starting with in September- e..g W WORDS for writing stories, banned words (said should be on this list!) Again this should be a working wall and change regularly according to your theme.
Don’t worry about having beautiful displays up on the first day back, just have the essentials for your class. If you have first and second for example, you should have the days of the week in English and Irish, months of the year in English and Irish, Irish weather words, maths symbols, number lines etc.
Try have your tables organised before the children come in too, so you can show them where each area is, e.g. the busy work table, early finishers area, library, creation station and so on. Have a set place for the children’s books and copies too. Having all this in place will help the children settle into a routine and will make life much easier for you. I have included a link to a free resource which you may find helpful, all about classroom structure and routine.
Enjoy!