How can teachers get started with thinking through a new classroom design? In these two tools from their acclaimed "Trading Spaces" classroom design courses, "The Sisters" (Gail Boushey and Joan Moser) share some strategies for working through a new design step by step.

Establishing an Environment for Learning is a two-page series of reflective prompts about beliefs, room arrangements, and materials that helps teachers sketch how they will organize materials and furniture to support literacy learning. You can download the tool by clicking here.

The Seven Steps - Designing the Physical Space presents an order for considering rearrangement of key areas of the classroom (i.e., teacher's desk, meeting areas, storage areas). You can download the form by clicking here.

You might use these forms to tackle reorganization after listening to the interview with The Sisters where they describe the importance of questioning "sacred spaces" like a large desk area for the teacher (or in their words, the "teacher shrine"). You can access the interview by clicking here.

©Gail Boushey and Joan Moser. All rights reserved.

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