Walking into the grade 1 classroom was like stepping into a dream. The teacher had everything so well-organized and labeled that I will be borrowing a lot of ideas from her! I just loved how well laid out the classroom was and how inviting it looked!

The most prominent feature that promoted literacy in this classroom was her sound wall. It occupied a large bulletin board and was well-spaced, making it easy for all the students to see while sitting at their desks. One intriguing aspect was covering up the sounds students haven’t learned yet. I haven’t had the chance to ask her why she does that, but my guess is that she wants the sounds they’ve already explored to stand out more.

My eyes were next drawn to her immaculate library. Although she is moving onto a different literacy approach, she has put love and effort into that library, so she still has it available for her students. Each bin is labeled with the reading level, making it super simple for the students to select a new book to discover.

I really loved how the alphabet on the wall also included the letters shown in sign language. I believe it’s an important skill for students to have. The alphabet was displayed at the front of the room, above the teacher’s working/learning area.

The picture above also shows a morning meeting message where the students identified specific words in the message. I have not yet had the chance to ask the teacher what they were looking for in this message.

Another element she had in her room was the display of colours. Normally living in Canada you would see the words written in English and in French (Black-Noir) but in her room she has the colours displayed in English and Ktunaxa, which is our local Indigenous tribe.

The three images below represent my dream ideas for reading nooks. In the first picture with the tree, I adore the aesthetic. An idea I had is to write the title of every book I or the students read on leaves and add them to the tree, filling it with leaves over time. In the second picture, I appreciate the concept of changing the theme of the nook based on what we are learning at the time. This image seems fitting for a unit on discovering the countries of our world, but it can be adapted for topics like poetry or ecosystems. As for the last picture, I love how organized it looks. I want students to find books with ease and treat them with respect. When books are displayed like this, I believe both conditions are met.

Images above from: https://www.boredteachers.com/post/reading-corner-ideas