"Things" In Our Room

As I was taking pictures of our new center areas today, I also took pictures of "things" hanging up in our room.  We have a lot of student observers from Wright State and UD in our classroom this semester and they ask us alot of questions about the "things" hanging up or that they see around the room.  Because we are reggio inspired we try to let the students be active in creating their environment. Most of the "things" on our walls are a direct product of the kids. We rarely use pre-printed posters, sheets, etc.  We do of course have some posters and such up... But it's minimal.  It pretty much takes the whole year to get the room fully "ready" ... And then of course it's time to start over with a new group of students.

Here are some examples of "things" the students did or that we use to organize our room.
Goals:
At the beginning of the school year each parent wrote a goal for their child on a ribbon and we weaved it into our community board.  We also use the frames to write our daily goals. We also do achievement beads. We call students over with their portfolio and assess on various tasks. Once they have mastered a skill we add the bead. I am in the process of assessing now because their beads definitely need to be updated!

Calendar:
This is our morning meeting and calendar area. Every morning when the students arrive they move their clip up to the colored square to check in.  This helps us know who and how many students are at school. We also do the typical calendar routine (days of the week, months, the date). The students make a monthly weather graph that we keep to compare each month. We count the days of school with cubes and we write our letter, word and math skill in the frames.

Centers:
We have been having students sign up for free choice centers every morning. After they finish their morning work they use a dry erase markers to sign up for where they would like to play in the afternoon.  When we are doing an investigation they are assigned to areas so everyone gets an opportunity everywhere.

Student Knowledge Displays:
Instead of using pre-printed materials we try to let the students make the displays around the room. They made their own names for the word wall. They made the number line and models of each number in our math area. They also made a paper chain for each teen number to show tens and ones. They draw pictures for each letter as we focus on the letter of the week. They also made our color collages and season collages as well.

Art:
Student art is displayed in frames or on wooden clips.

Our classroom environment is ever changing and rearranging based on need. It is amazing to watch the blank canvas turn into a masterpiece by the end of the year!