more seating....

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more seating....
By Chantal

I have had the students sit in groups of 4 on the first day, mixing boys and girls and mixing ability levels as well. I check their permanent folders to see what children have difficulties and try to keep them in a seat
closer to the board and my desk. I also check with previous teachers to find out if there are any kids that should NOT be together. I avoid rows because I want to see how they react/behave in groups and some of the first day activities include group work. Building community is such an important part of the first few weeks so I like to keep them together. Some years work better than others

and I have resorted to rows when kids could not focus on classwork and socialized too much!
One trick someone taught me is to put all the kids names on index cards and mark if there are behavior issues, learning issues, etc. and then create your groups. This way you can play around with different combos and without a lot of erasing! A few weeks into the year you may want to update the index cards and do some more shuffling if change are necessary.
And to think that all these people think teachers take the summer off; seating arrangements alone can take hours!!! Best of Luck.