Since I began teaching I have been playing around with how my classroom should be setup. My first few years were focused on going through all of the things that were found within the room, trying to understand what the previous teacher had left and how they had organized the room.
Once I found where everything was it became an organizational game making sure everything had a place and was easily accessible for the students. As soon as I figured out all of those things I was moved into a new room.
There were pros and cons to the move. Pros: I was out of the basement (which I was by myself with no other teachers or classrooms), I was given a bit more space, there are windows, and I had more control on how the room was laid out. Cons: There was a bunch of packing to undertake, the room has carpet not linoleum, cabinets were exchanged for closets, and I had to make up how the room was laid out with all of the stuff that was traveling.
The new room is fitting me nicely and has given the students more space and better lighting for various projects. I decided when I was looking over all of the parts to my room that would be traveling, that I wanted to have an area for me and my older students to be able to use, but not the younger students to have some control over how things were organized.
I created a fake wall by taking my shelving units and backing them up against one another so that I could divide the room in half. In the back half is all of the closets with my extra supplies, my tables for 3D work, my drawers for older student portfolios, and my desk. Each of my closets are labeled with various medium so if the older students need to get extra supplies they know where to find them.
In the front half of the room is the student tables, shelving for sketchbooks and various supplies, my projector and document camera, and student computers. The elementary supplies are in the cubbies and are labeled with numbers and colors so they know which ones they need to get for each of the tables. All of the students can use the computers, but they are normally their for the older students if they are researching a topic.
The island in the center of my classroom is a new addition this school year. The maintenance department was able to mount my projector to the ceiling over the summer which made me think of where I wanted to setup my document camera. The center of the room was a natural place for it so I moved an extra cabinet between my tables for that purpose. It has been working out wonderfully!
My classroom is constantly changing, since I am continually trying to see where things will work best and how the students work with the room. Overall though the students have a great understanding of how things work and are labeled! It leads to creative students and classes that run smoothly!