First day of school!

Well, today was the first day of school for me.  I prepared more this summer for today than any other year as I was making the leap voluntarily to a deskless classroom and was given the joy of working in a 1-to-1 environment this year also.

So, first step was to convince my principal to buy me new chairs and get rid of my desks.  He agreed back in April, which gave me a lot of time to think about what I wanted my classroom to look like.  I decided that I was going to sew (ha!) 30 chair pockets for my chairs so that students would have easy access to things they would need throughout class.  I hadn't sewn since 8th grade, so that was quite the job!  I was so clueless, so I was lucky to find a lady a church willing to loan me a heavy-duty machine and give me a brief tutorial.

Next, I was off to the fabric store to find heavy duty fabric that would hold up all year with high school bodies.  I decided to choose 6 different fabrics and make 5 of each to help with grouping and create "areas" in my room.  I had to ask the employees to help me calculate how much fabric I needed.

Sewing!  I measured 17 inches across, 36 inches long...I sewed a seam along the top and the bottom, but on opposite folds...I hope this makes sense.  Then, I measured between 9 and 10 inches for the top, sewed in "inside out", folded up the other seam until it almost met the end of my seam and sewed that one "inside out" as well.  Then, I turned each side inside out and voila! 

Next, I asked for the supplies that I wanted in each chair pocket.  In my pockets, kids have: a white board to use as a white board but also as a writing surface, a spiral notebook, a pen, a highlighter, a dry erase marker and a clean sock (for erasing the white board). 

Whew!  Ready to go...but my chairs didn't show up until about 2:00 yesterday.  Thank goodness I had students ready to help!  I put the chairs in a horseshoe pattern with like fabrics together.  Then, I took the extra fabric pieces and cut out a matching swatch to go with each chair.

This morning, I was ready to go with my swatches and handed each student a piece and told them to find a chair with that matching fabric.  Of course I alternated fabrics so that kids were spaced evenly.  I think that letting my kids have some choice in where they sat really helped them not complain about having a "seating chart". 

Today, we did Chromebook work, we did writing, and we had the kids stand up and sit down during an activity.  So far, so good!  The cell phones were in bags on the tables lining my room and no one hated not writing on a desk.  A very few kids didn't like not having the desks, but reactions were super positive for the most part.  I think it sets the tone that this class will not be like other classes they have had.