Every year presents new challenges, and this one is no exception! There are reflective thinkers. busy thinkers, wiggly thinkers, artistic thinkers and more! How do you make sure each one is benefiting from your classroom environment? Here are some tips that may help you keep your sanity:
Your spaces:
Do you have a large area of carpet or floor space where your wiggly thinkers can go to lie on their tummies and do their work? It is so important to recognize these sweeties, and their need to be moving as they work. They have an internal “rhythm” that will not be squelched, so you may as well work with it! My sweet wigglers enjoy stretching out with a white board for a desk on the carpet as they work in their journals or complete our practice page from our reading series. You may also notice less noise in your room because they are not in close proximity to others while they work as when they are seated at desks or tables.
You may have students who need to stand to do writing or drawing. For this I have provided an area where students can hang their paper in a clipboard attached to the wall with a command hook. If you are worried about crayons on walls, cover the area with a laminated sheet of bulletin board paper. This can do double duty as a white board space!
And…there are still students who NEED a “home base” to do work. Those students are comfortable sitting at a table to work, but need a wide area (distant proximity) to others. This is why I still keep my tables in my classroom. Each year I have at least one student who is more comfortable working in his/her own space.
Be sure to reevaluate your spaces at least once a month. Are your students able to have uninterrupted work time wherever they are? If not, you need to do some tweaking!
What about Materials?
My students come in with all levels of fine motor ability. I have regular pencils, fat pencils, triangular crayons, Scentos markers ,which are very large, regular crayons, Crayola Twistable Crayons AND Crayola Twistables colored pencils. There are regular markers, paint daubers and water colors too. For paper, I use plain white paper at the beginning of the year with one line at the bottom for students who need a place for their name or letters to belong. Later in the year I provide paper with a picture space and two lines. Ultimately, we will have less space for the picture and more lines. You can find a free beginning paper link below in this post. 🙂
Whatever your writing tools, be sure to take time and find out which ones work for each student the best. I highly recommend the triangular crayons since they help kids hold their writing tool with the correct grip in a natural way. These are also by Crayola.
Here is my beginning of the year paper! I like having an alphabet formation line on the top!
Now for the giveaway! I just finished my October in Canada Magic Writing Center! Easy to print and ready to go! Just add white crayons, regular crayons, water color paints and watch them go!
Leave your TIP for differentiating for students in your classroom, and two winners will be picked on Sunday, August 23!
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