I am always curious to see how other preschool classrooms are set up. So I wanted to show you all how I set up my classroom. I am going into my 4th school year as a preschool special ed. teacher and I’ve done things differently every year. I really liked my setup last school year so I tried to keep it pretty much the same.
I try to be a minimalist. I do not thrive well with a bunch of junk lying around and I know my students don’t either. Don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot of stuff, but I purge as much as possible when I get a chance.
The first couple of pictures are the before pictures of my room. At the end of every school year, the teachers have to pack up their belongings and move the furniture so that the custodians can wax the floors and do a deep cleaning. My husband came and helped me move the furniture.
What a mess!
Every school year my principal picks the school wide theme and the teachers decorate the door leading to the classroom and the hallway. Our school theme was the Wonderful World of Disney and my classroom theme was Aladdin. Shout out to our classroom paraprofessional, Ms. Bryant! I think the door turned out great!
When you walk into my classroom you will see the white board, our new Dell panel “smart board” and my teacher space. My students sit in chairs in front of the board and we conduct our morning meeting, large group story time and circle time in this area.
To the right of my Dell Panel “Smart Board” you will see our large visual schedule. Each day during our morning meeting and throughout the day, I will reference our visual schedule. We also use a letter sized first/next board so that the students know exactly what activity is coming next. A couple of my students have their own individual visual schedules at well. The picture symbols are from Simply Special Ed!
My teacher space has a table where I keep my work laptop and paperwork. I have several carts to keep all of my office supplies organized and a book shed to keep my teacher resources.
Next you will see the classroom library and calm down space. I put a select number of books in this area that go hand-in-hand with our monthly theme. I will also put our adaptive books and social stories here. The kids love the library!
Our kitchen/dramatic play area is hands down the most visited area in the room. At the beginning of the school year, we limit the amount of items and pretend food available for our kids. There are too many things for the students to use at first. As the year goes on, the teachers introduce new items for meaningful play. It is so fun to see the students’ imagination grow as they play in the kitchen area.
On the other side of the classroom is the fun and games area. During center time, the students are able to pick a toy, play with blocks or race cars.
The students also have an option of playing at the table. With the help of the Center Time choice board, the students can choose to work with play dough, read a book, draw or color, work on a puzzle or blow bubbles.
Visual schedules, visual prompts and first/then boards are used throughout each section of our classroom. Keeping things organized and structured is a work in progress in my classroom full of 3 and 4 year olds but we work hard at it daily.
We stay very busy and there is a lot of learning that goes on in this classroom. I can truly say I enjoy coming here and having fun every day.
Thanks for visiting my classroom!
Is this setup from this school year? I’d love to see an ECSE classroom set up with covid precautions in place!