More than once I've been asked with my classroom of alternative seating options, "Where do your students do a whole group activity?" So let me share where and how we complete a whole group activity in kindergarten.
Before I lay out what we do - and it's really rather simple - let me remind you that I don't have a traditional chair for every student in my classroom.
And if you want to find out more about why that happened, then you should read how I ditched my teacher desk because that's where it all started. (I also hated the desk they'd given me. I've always asked for this Sit Stand Desk From This Company but never really got it.)
Now, back to your question...
Where do my kindergarten students work when we do a whole group activity?
Well, just like your kinders, I suppose – we sat on the floor in our whole group meeting area. {wink}
If I was teaching to the whole group, I’d do it with them as close to me in proximity as possible. It’s just developmentally appropriate that way. If we needed a writing platform they would use a clip board/lap board (like for guided drawing) or have their calendar binders in their lap.
Right... but you weren't really wondering about teaching whole group, were you? You wanted to know about working whole group - everyone on the same thing at the same time.
You probably wanted to know if I got rid of painting or projects since not everyone had a “seat” in our classroom.
Heck no.
We just modified the general work options available. If we were doing a “project” then we would use all table/shelf spaces.
It doesn’t matter what the table is usually used for, if it was needed for space – we used it!
I did limit the type of work space in these types of situations since we had to share materials.
A floor-space, for example, works great for centers or writer's workshop but just doesn’t really work well in messy-project situations and they quickly learn that with alternative seating options.
I've got more pictures of every table in use for this crazy messy abstract art project we did along with some great conversation in case you want to see how we pull it together - for a class of 27 kindergarten students! Click here to see more pictures of our class in action.
To find out the answers for more of your questions on alternative seating be sure to check out 6 Frequently Asked Questions!
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