Table Groups

     I like to use tables in my classroom instead of desks.  I find desks to be harder to teach organization and a little noisy.  I also have seen kids hide or play with things inside the desks during teaching time.  If you decide to use tables, I have used two organization systems over the years that work pretty well.  The first thing I used was a crate under each table where students organized their work by subject.  This worked ok, but we did have to plan for the extra time to transition from one subject to the next.  For the last couple of years, I have used chair pockets instead to organize individual work into folders.  This was my favorite system. 

      Either way, desks or tables, it is important to group students into table groups or clusters for small group activities, partner work, and managment (positive behavior or table point incentives). I start the year by naming my table groups, following my classroom theme.  I hang a picture of the group name from the ceiling, using fishing line and a paperclip to attach it to the ceiling.  For instance, if one table group was the Hippos, I would have a picture of a cartoon hippo above the group and would make sure to not dangle it low enough where the kids could reach it.  During class, I provide table points for the first table ready after transition time and tables that are working quiet.  At the end of the week, the winning table would receive a small prize, like a pencil, candy, sticker, etc.  The kids love it and it encourages them to do their job and get back to where they need to be in order to work towards a team goal. 

      As the year went on, and we moved into learning about communities, I change the table group names.  I tell the students that our school is like The United States and our classroom is like the state of Texas.  I then let each group choose a city inside Texas to be their table name and hang new tags over the groups with their city names.  This helps them get the idea of how cities fit in states and states fit into The United States.