Today was my last day of work. As I prepared to leave my room for a lovely summer break, I took a few pictures for a couple of reasons: 1) I wanted to capture the image of my super-shiny, clean room & post it on Instagram, and 2) I wanted to get some advice from other teachers, especially those who have experience in a TAB classroom.
Next year, Lindsay, Stephen and I are beginning our TLLP journey together, and part of the journey involves assessing and restructuring our classrooms. I can’t think of a better time to take stock of my learning environment, get advice and begin to plan for changes in the coming school year. In fact, I’m going to challenge my friends to do the same thing. Stephen & Lindsay (and anyone else who would like to join us for the ride): Take a picture of your classroom, write a blog post with your images & ask for advice from others.
I’ve learned that other people have amazing strengths that we can benefit from, especially when those strengths balance our own weaknesses. My weakness: organization.
How should I organize my classroom? What is the best way to use the space I work in every day? How do I prevent tossing materials in a location that I know about, but my students don’t? How do I create centres (or is this advisable for high school)? Is it better to simply organize & label materials and equipment for easy access & storage? What about anchor charts that could be displayed near certain storage areas?
Please leave a comment below! (thanks)
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Northern Art Teacher 
I don’t use centers. I try to organize by media. All the paper is in one space, all the drawing materials, all the paint, clay, etc. I watch my students and see how I can organize better. Things in drawers are labeled. I still need to work on the supply closet because there is stuff they can use in there and I want to make it accessible. I thought about putting something on the door with samples of materials found inside.
I’m nearing the end of my process of reorganizing my room for TAB. I grouped things by like materials and/or topics. To help kids find things, I color coded the areas with contact paper and will be labeling the drawers and cabinets as well. For items that seem similar (like acrylic vs watercolor paintbrushes), I also put colored take on the ends to help keep things properly separate/organized. I recently posted pictures and a more in depth explanation of different areas on the HS TAB Facebook page. Organization has never been my strong suit- I started figuring things out and making sketches of my storage spaces and what goes where months ago, and am finally getting around to it now that the kids are gone 🙂