When you come into school to meet your child’s teacher or to see an event, these meetings will normally take part in the classroom or our school hall. And although the classroom is where 70% of lessons may take place, it is not exclusively there where learning happens. Apart from specialist lessons like PE, Chinese and Performing Arts, at BSB Sanlitun we also have some great educational spaces that function as purpose-built learning areas that are more fitting and practical than the classroom for certain activities. In this article, we will look at some of these spaces and find out how they have been used over the last academic year for Year 2 specifically.
Art Room
The Art Room is an excellent place for allowing students to unleash their creativity. Filled with resources for everything from painting to clay modelling, it served us well when students created art inspired by the world’s most famous artists throughout Term 1.
Cookery Room
In Term 3, our Topic revolves all around healthy living. Of course, nutrition is a huge part of a healthy, balanced lifestyle. Each week, we used the Cookery Room, which has everything needed to create some healthy recipes: blenders for smoothies, mixers for sauces or child-friendly knives and chopping boards for salads.
Maker Space
This is a great area for technology and engineering. We recently used this space as the Year 2 students put their newfound coding knowledge into action. They used WeDo Lego sets to build, programme and test mini machines. Some of the machines were programmed to flash their lights, whilst others were programmed to move or spin.
Video: click here to follow the Meerkats to the Maker Space and see their algorithms come to life!
Library
Students use this area more than any other as every Year 2 class has an allocated library time. Filled with books from around the world, comfy cushions and a calming design, the library is a great place for students to cultivate a love of reading. Each week at the beginning of the library session, our librarian informs students of any books that may link to current Topics or upcoming celebration days (Earth Day, Native Language Day, etc.), then students are free to read, browse or take out a library book for the week. We also occasionally have some quite famous authors visit the library to do a book signing!
A very informative website with ideas of how to create engaging learning spaces at home:
https://www.waterford.org/resources/how-to-create-an-at-home-learning-space/
By James Behzadi
Year 2 Giraffes Class Teacher
