Banning Single-Use Spaces

Conferencing spaces in my classroom (keeping me and all students 1.5m apart)

Space is one of the most valuable commodities when teaching in the time of social distancing. Even lining up to enter the school needs a line as long as a bowling lane. The value of the space you are given means you do not want to waste any of it. Chairs double as coat rooms, desks become work-spaces, organisers, and lockers.  Both the area around the sink in my classroom and the doorway double as key teaching spaces that allow me to have direct access to each one of my students. Slightly staggering the students' desks also helped to create classroom triads that have worked for small group instruction as well as collaboration between students. 

My favourite double-usage space actually resides outside of the classroom.  Each class was given a waiting-space inside the school to help control the flow of students between classrooms and playground. Ours was meant to simply be a line just outside of the classroom, but when measured out, we went well past the next classroom down the hall.  Instead, we ended up on a small bridge that connects our Elementary School and Early Child Center. Again, too long for a single straight line, we ended up with half the class on each side of the bridge. All of a sudden, almost every collaborative structure I was racking my brain trying to figure out how to use in the classroom had found its place. 

My Classroom outside my classroom (keeping all students 1.5m apart)

In the first week, we did a collaborative learning structure every time we entered or exited the building. We also used this space for brain breaks at least one other time each day (as you can imagine, 7 and 8 year olds are not used to sitting and working at a desk for long periods of time!) 

Next week I plan on tapping into probably the most underused learning space available to me...the great outdoors!