I like to change desks on the last day of the month - or more like the last Friday of the month. It's a chance for the kiddos to clean out their desks - really organize everything and get ready for a brand new start. Every month I usually change to a different seating arrangement as well. Of course this afternoon I'm changing because, well... before vacation I ran out of energy to come up with a new seating chart.
At the end of last year I found my most favorite arrangement - the Double U. Getting prepped for this new school year I had everything set up for this group of kids, my husband did the zip ties on the desks, and we were ready to tackle the year. Then I met the kids and realized that this group needs to switch desks a lot. I mean a lot! I needed to have quite a few of them as my desk buddies, or as islands, or as a chance to move away from the group to be able to focus. This group can not handle sitting in table groups, and many of them need to be facing forward - not having their desks sitting sideways from the board where they could possibly see another child. Of course there isn't a lot of room in my classroom to have everyone as an island all the time. Having no room to walk around or losing carpet space drives me nuts.
So I wanted to share all the different ways I arrange my room. I made up a packet so you can see how I transition through the year. I know everyone's class is different, but if you would like to download this from TPT you should be able to just write in the names. These arrangements are based on 32 kiddos.
Table Groups Ideas
*groups of 3 (these look like ladybugs to me)
*groups of 4
*groups of 6
*groups of 8
*groups of 10 and 12 (not enough space in my classroom for this one)
*Link Ups - sides connected, everyone facing forward. This one is great for when students really need to focus and get distracted by others.
*Islands - everyone separated into rows
*E reverse E - students facing forward except side students
(10 students that are capable of looking at other students)
*Double U - 20 students on the outside U, 12/13 students on the inner U. This is great for when you only want 2 rows of students. It feels like a huddle, no one is too far away.
If nothing else perhaps it will give you some ideas on how to move around your kids.
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