Our learning space showcases the learning and documents student’s thinking and understanding. As you can see above, our walls are covered with evidence of their thinking, questions and theories about our current unit: Living Things. Students are involved in the design and display of their learning too. A few students worked together to measure and plan how many rectangles of cardboard would fit along the base of this board. Then they used glue and sand from our playground to make the ‘dirt’ for our flower life cycles to sit on. The yellow Post-It notes are evidence of their theories and questions about our field trip to the Spice Garden on Campus.
Displaying our inquiry with photos and large text this way also reinforces new language and spelling patterns. Students are drawn to photos of themselves and this meaningful context provides another reading source for them learn about language.. I often see children standing by a photo with themselves or their friends in it sounding out new words or running to me to say they found the ‘bossy e’ or ‘ing sound.
The Kids Upfront display on the top half celebrates each family’s unique cultural and family traditions. Students plan and prepare (with help from their parents) a special presentation and activity for our class. It can range from a traditional cultural holiday to the family’s favourite sports team.
Grade 1 Reggio-Inspired Learning Space: 2018-2019
Grade 5 Learning Space: 2016-2018
EdTech Coach Learning Spaces 2014-2016
As Full-Time EdTech Coach for 50+ teachers and 400+ students, I divide my time between push-in support, team teaching, collaborative planning and EdTech workshops. We organised a whole-school tech conference in Feb 2015 featuring Jeff Utecht as keynote speaker. The conference title was Create, Innovate, Apply and during this conference I led a 2 workshops on Blogging in the Classroom.
Professional Learning Spaces: I’ve set up 3 spaces in our staffroom to inspire and celebrate innovation in the classroom.
Once a week I host an after-school club to introduce coding to Grades 1-3. There are 19 students in the club and we explore basic coding using BlueBots, unplugged coding such as Pixel Coding, and different coding platforms like Tynker and Hopscotch.
Grade 4 Classroom: 2013-2014
Innovative Learning in the Elementary Classroom 
Looks like you have a very fun bright learning space. I love how you have incorporated different spaces into your room.
Thanks for your feedback Nat. I really enjoy creating a space that matches the personality of my students. We build this space together and are constantly modifying and changing it to suit our units and classroom needs. They’ve helped decorate the majority of the wall space, which also helps personlize the classroom. I just looked at your website and am keen to explore more of it.
Kia Ora!
We are a Year 7 & 8 Class in Hamilton, New Zealand. We are an IB World School and a part of the Primary Years Programme (PYP). Our Blog is a place where you can find the latest information about all the things that are happening in and around Room 27.
http://bnmsroom27.blogspot.co.nz/
We would love it if we could begin commenting / connecting with each other =)
Hope to hear from you soon!
Mr C