Okay, now that you’ve come through the door, we are ready to get down to the floor.
Rugs Are Nice
- For little kids, get a rug with the ABCs, roads (like a map), or colorful pictures.
- Older kids might enjoy the states or a checkers/chess board (but then you need the pieces to go with it).
- A colorful welcome mat by your outside door is nice.
- My first year teaching I was broke, but I did find someone selling brand new carpet sample squares at a yard sale for a quarter each. So I duct-taped a bunch of them together (on the back) in an interesting pattern for our Book Nook. Worked out great!
A Place to Be Messy
You might not be too keen on making paper mâché dinosaurs if your room is covered in wall-to-wall carpet. Hopefully, you have some floor space for these messy projects, but if you don’t, make one.
- If you have a lot of cash at your disposal, then you could cover a corner of your classroom in those plastic office mats (the ones people put under wheelie chairs to keep them from damaging the carpet).
- If you are short on cash (uh, yeah, I’m a teacher, duh!), then you could buy one of those bright blue tarps and tape it down with brightly colored duct tape.
- In a pinch, get painting tarps (those really thin plastic ones). Not great, but they are cheap and big. Good for a one time project – get ’em messy, throw ’em out.
A Final Thought
If you teach little kids, then take a minute to get down on the floor (you probably do this a lot a lot during the school day – try it when your students aren’t around). Look around. This is the view your students have. Make sure it is a good one. Sometimes things that look fine from up above don’t look so great from down below. Next week, we’ll be exploring desks, tables, and chairs, oh my!
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