Sit Spots in First Grade

I'm so excited to tell you about the Sit Spots I've been using for the last two weeks!

 view from the door

When my students come to the meeting area for a mini lesson or to use the Smartboard, they sit on the floor.  I've already got a completely carpeted classroom, so when I was new in primary world, I had the kids just randomly plop down anywhere.  That lasted a few days.  Then I decided to assign them "carpet spots."  It was a way for me to keep the talkers separated and give the wigglers a close spot where I could put a hand on their shoulder.  In order to keep track of everyone's spot, I made myself a chart with velcro dots and pictures of the kiddos.

 my reference chart

They were pretty good about remembering who they sit next to or behind, but occasionally there would be small scuffle about placement.  I thought about getting one of those $300 carpets with the big squares.  I thought that would solve the problem, but I couldn't get passed the huge price or the fact that putting carpet on carpet would be weird... and it would shift/slide... and be hard to vacuum over... and someone might get sick on it.  So I never ordered one.

Then I see post after post about Sit Spots on all my favorite educator blogs.  At first I thought they were just rubbery-plasticky circles that sat on top of the carpet.  I thought they were like the ones our P.E. teacher uses on the gym floor.  Didn't seem like a good idea for my classroom.

Fast forward one year, and picture me finding out that Sit Spots are like VELCRO!  They actually "stick" to the fibers of my commercial carpeting!  Luckily, I was able to use funds from my school budget to purchase 24 spots.  I decided to go with half green and half blue.  We often "turn and talk" to our partner.  Having two colors makes it easy to determine who goes first.  

in our carpet spots

If you're looking for an easy way to organize your students in your meeting area, I recommend ordering the free sample from the SitSpots website.  Once you know it works on your carpet, go ahead and order them, you won't regret it!

Happy Teaching,

Catherine