One of My NYC Classrooms!

I worked at several different schools in Manhattan. Most had very small classrooms and limited funds so I had to worked with what I could find around the school.

One preschool in Manhattan was once a well respected school for students with severe and multiple disabilities, but over the years they were unable to fill their classrooms and started to accept students with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). I was the teacher for the only classroom of children with severe and multiple disabilities. They lacked many of the toys, and supplies needed for this population. My classroom eventually became half severe and multiple disabilities, and half ASD which meant I had to completely redo the classroom. The following pictures show the classroom before the redo.

General Classroom Pictures:

Toy shelves

The classroom had standard wood shelves, the ones every preschool has. They were a light wood and the toys would blend in. If you look closely you can still see it in the middle and on some of the sides of the shelves.

I found a roll of black contact paper and used it to cover the shelves. I had hoped to do the entire shelf, but I ran out of contact paper.

For the area above the shelves I used black butcher block paper in place of contact paper.

To differentiate the shelves/cubbies from one another I lined the outside of each cubby with yellow duct tape. I used yellow as it (or red) are often preferred colors for students with Cortical Visual Impairments (CVI).

I tried to limit the number of toys of each shelf to 2. This meant many toys lived in a cabinet by my desk and I would switch them out periodically.

Sensory Booth

I always wanted to make room dividers/a sensory booth out of PVC pipe. At the time I was living in Manhattan and did not have any tools or space to make them. I roamed around the school and I found two small room dividers like these from FLAGHOUSE, or Amazon in the “unused” closet.

I could only find the clear divider for the set since the others were in use. I wrapped the clear dividers in black butcher paper. Another piece of black butcher paper was attached to one divider and draped over the top to block out any light.

This area was used for two purposes:

1.

To help students focus who were easily distracted. Some of the students who later joined the class had ASD and were easily distracted. For those students, I could pull the divider out and they could sit on one side with me on the other and we could do work without all the distractions of a classroom. This created a “separate room,” so to speak, in our small NYC classroom.

2.

To serve as a Sensory booth for students with a CVI. When working with a student with a CVI, I could use it in a similar to above, but instead of reducing distractions, it is provided an area with high contrast.

What I liked the best about this for students with CVI, is that it gave us a simple “Dark Room” for light based activities, such as a light box.

I would usually put a black tri-poster board against the white wall, if the student was facing the wall. I would also put one of those poster boards behind me to block out more light.

This setup could get a little hot so ideally, I would now make one out of PVC pipe.

General Things:

  • The tables were high enough that the students with adapted seating could easily fit under the tables. The tables were small with space for two seats on two opposite sides. This made it impossible to fit two adapted chairs next to or directly across from each other. I was able to place an adapted chair on each side with a teacher chair next to it. The adapted chairs were placed diagonally across the table.

  • I put contact paper on each table for the same reason I placed contact paper on the shelves. The major issue with contact paper is that some students will try to rip it off.

  • I have both tactile and visual cues for students.

  • I tried to reduce visual clutter which is very difficult in a NYC classroom. These classrooms are often very small and have very little storage. In order to declutter the area where the students were, I sacrificed my teacher space. Often having boxes in the back corner where my desk was.

  • When I first started in there were 50 cues all over the bulletin board. These cues were not used by the students, rather we used them for scheduling. Therefore, I organized them in baggies according to their “subjects/theme.”