seating arrangements

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seating arrangements
By lorla

Whew! 35 kids, where do you teach? My class had 26, which was large (although I read posts of people with 20 and am so jealous!) Anyway, I put mine in teams of 4-5 students and angle them to face the board. A friend fits
hers in so 1/2 have their backs to the board and then teaches them to all turn their chairs when needed (I may try that too). I keep the team arrangement the same but change groups every six weeks using Kagan cooperative groups (high, med, struggling abilities) also taking into consideration behavior issues, need to be close to front, etc. I like to keep as much free room on the floor

to create the illusions of space so my moveable bookshelves are pushed against the back wall. My room isn't huge, the school was built in the mid 70's. This year I think I'll put my desk in the far back corner rather than up front. I try to have a spot where we can easily push desks away to clear the floor so we can gather around. My 6th graders last year did not like to sit on the floor so I let them bring chairs or sit on desks, but sometimes they sat on the floor anyway. The biggest issue with the teams were interpersonal difficulties but staying together for 6 weeks gave almost everyone enough time to learn to get along for work, however once was enough for some pairings :-)