Starting the year off right!
Walking into a hot, empty classroom in August can be scary and overwhelming as you think about your fourth grade classroom set-up! Many questions run through your head. How should I set up my room? What is my theme? Should I use desks or tables? How should I arrange them? What is important to put up and leave up throughout the entire year?
Teachers want their rooms to be welcoming and comfortable for their students and themselves. After all, you will be “living” there eight hours a day, five days a week!
Some teachers are naturally creative and their rooms reflect their personal sense of style. Other teachers don’t touched their rooms until the work week, and then they rush around throwing things together to be ready at the last possible minute.
But, like most teachers I fall somewhere in the middle. I look at the beautiful classrooms on Instagram in awe, but I don’t have the creativity or budget to create an Instagram classroom.
Where do you begin?
I begin thinking about the set up of my fourth grade classroom before school is even out for summer. I think about what worked and didn’t work, what furniture should I rearrange, and what materials on the wall are out of date and need replacing.
It is incredibly hard if you are a new teacher, or teaching a new grade. How do you know what’s important? If you turn to Instagram or Pinterest, you will definitely overwhelm yourself. It’s always a good idea to check out a teammate’s room to see what is necessary to put up and get ideas for your own classroom.
And hopefully this blog post will give you some realistic ideas for your fourth grade classroom set-up.
At my school we are departmentalized in fourth grade, so that is why my room only has reading and language arts materials. You can read more about me here.
A welcoming door
The door is the first thing that people see when they walk into your room. A positive quote is a great way for students to start the day.
Shelves and plenty of organization containers
You definitely do not want piles of papers everywhere in your room. It is imperative to have some method of organization. You may find that what you come up with in the beginning doesn’t work for you, so you have to try something else in the middle of the year, which it totally fine. Here are these drawer labels.
Organized shelves
You want to set your shelves up, so they are organized and easily accessible for students. Don’t stuff shelves too full, you will definitely acquire new materials throughout the year.
Tables or desks organized so students can start the year in groups
It is essential for students to learn how to work together at the beginning of the year, so that is why I always start off with my desks in groups. Many of my colleagues love having tables in their rooms, but I find them bulky. I like desks better because they can moved into so many different arrangements, and they have a place for students to store their own belongings.
Necessary posters and anchor charts
Reading comprehension skills posters
There are a few posters I leave up year round because we discuss these skills in everything we read. These include: Author’s Purpose, Point of View, Theme, and Genre. Here are these reading skills posters.
The other reading comprehension skills posters I rotate through my bulletin board by simply slipping them in a page protector. These Reading Skills Comprehension Posters will work with any reading curriculum your school may already have.
Writing skills posters
I leave my FANBOYS anchor charts up all year because combining sentences is one of the most important grammar skills my students need to know for the STAAR Writing Test. Here are these FANBOYS posters.
The other writing skills posters I change out based on what skills we are learning in writing. My STAAR Writing Posters include grammar skills and expository writing strategies. Here are these Writing Strategies Posters.
A Quote
A motivational quote can be a beautiful display and encourage student they are feeling down. Here is this Classroom Quote.
Remember don’t stress too much and try to have fun when setting up your fourth grade classroom.
