Thought I’d start out by posting some pictures of my Seminary classroom in case anyone was interested. It’s always helpful to me to actually *see* what something looks like, as opposed to reading about it.
My students enter the house through the basement door greeted by a sign that reads welcome to Seminary and has a picture of a cell phone in airplane mode.
When they come in, they sign in at the door. I used to use this Seminary sign in sheet, but I changed it to make things easier for me. The new form has my students names in alphabetical order (to match the attendance form I use) along with a blank for if they did the reading and one for if they were tardy or not. It also has a list of stuff they will need from their cubbies each day so that I don’t have kids coming to their seats without the things they need for class.
I bought this bookcase from Ikea to hold the kids’ stuff while they are in class. Their backpacks and shoes are piled up on the floor, while their scriptures and other items go in the cubbies. One of the cubbies has a magazine holder in it. That’s what they used in the previous classroom at the church to hold their items. The magazine holder is just right for holding a spiral or composition notebook, scriptures, a pencil case, and a folder or two.
Here’s how I have the tables arranged right now. My great room in the basement is a big square with a support pole right in the center. I teach while standing in the front center of the ‘u’, which keeps me close to the kids and able to monitor their work, and they can all see each other. I would personally prefer to have them in 3 straight rows, but that won’t fit in my space right now. We’re still under construction. When I had just 9 kids, the tables were closer together and it felt cozy — more conversant. Now I have 10 and it’s a little awkward.
On each table is a little label for the zones. I changed up the seating today because one of my students was distracting the others. It seemed to help a bit.
You can see the couches in the background with the big TV. We started class sitting 3 on each of the 2 couches and 3 in some extra chairs I had around. They LOVED sitting on the couches, and when they memorize all 25 scripture masteries I will put the tables by the couches for class. Please ignore the construction tools everywhere…. it’s how we roll.
I don’t have a dry erase board, but I do use this easel to keep myself on track during lessons. Here’s a chart from last week’s lesson on Agency.
