Design and architecture outside of the lesson

When I was looking at the design and architecture, I was thinking of it more metaphorically and how to apply this to my lesson planning. In my first post, I talked about applying the design aspect to lesson planning through differentiation, or changing the activities. Then, I stepped back and realized that I could actually take the design and apply it to the design of my classroom. One of the things I noticed in the reading was how to take a big space and create walls through furniture arrangements and placements of wall art. I can think of the furniture as the furniture in my classroom. How can I arrange it to create specific spaces to meet the needs of my students? I have started to arrange things keeping in mind that I want to make my classroom appealing to the eye, but also versatile! I have always had my reading table accessible to my students so I am able to use it for my guided reading, but based on where the furniture was when I got the room, the book shelves were scattered around the room. Last weekend I moved them so that they are easily accessible to me when I am pulling books for my students. This way I don't have to walk across the room if I forgot a book. To many this may have seemed like the obvious thing to do, but I was so caught up in other areas that I had completely overlooked this aspect of my classroom until recently. I do feel like I have always taken time to really think about the placement of my posters and things on my walls. I try to make them the most useful to my students while trying not to make it look like a car with bad bumper stickers. I try to arrange all of my writing posters together so that when my students have a questions about writing, they can look in one area to hopefully get some help. When it comes to my table groups, I try to arrange them in a way that all of my students can look at the board without having their back to it. I also like to leave a space for me to have carpet time, since I do teach first grade. Overall this module has really made me reassess the way that I have my room set up and how to make the most of the space that I am given while trying to keep it appealing to look at as well. I am all about displaying student work and having fun posters, but I also know there is a way to make it look busy and cluttered as opposed to organized and versatile!