Classroom Layouts

I have cite a dear source for this idea: my mom. For the big Moving Out into my first apartment in Austin she had the clever idea of using grid paper to decide where the larger pieces of furniture will go before moving day. It was genius, although I probably failed to tell her so at the time. I still have the layout in my ever growing Put in a Scrapbook pile.

Our campus moved from an older, critter-ridden building to a few blocks away at a renovated middle school. The small amount of grief that I would never be in my first classroom again was nothing compared to the mixed feelings about packing, moving, and setting up the classroom again. The first day I saw my new room I counted the floor tiles. It was smaller, with way less storage, and didn't have bathrooms. It was also CLEAN, bright, and presented an opportunity brainstorm and create, things I like doing!

So, in using my mom's idea, I plotted out my room with the electrical outlets, boards, and built-in cabinets noted. Then I drew my furniture to scale and colored them to remind me what they are.

I used fun new product Debbie Diller told me about at a training I went to in June. Repositionable glue is like the sticky part of sticky notes! She used it in a guided reading/writing activity where her students wrote new text for a boring leveled reader and actually pasted the new text inside! Wow! I found this at Michael's: 

I put the glue all over the grid paper rather than my little cutouts to save time. I arranged the pieces and voilà!

There are several unknowns that will cause me to move furniture around, but at least it's a start. I won't be able to go to the room for two more weeks (California, here I come!) and this soothes my rather premature back to school worries. 

How do you plan your classroom layout?