The One With Assigned Seats

School started yesterday. I'm two days in and absolutely loving it. This year's group is great! I'm really excited about the school year.

Late Sunday night, I realized that I didn't have a easy way to assign seats Monday. I like to set the tone by giving them an assigned seat right off the bat. Since I don't really know them yet, I do a random selection.

I fell back on an old trick I picked up from another teacher a couple of years ago. I'm told it is one of Harry Wong's great idea. I stopped by Wal-Mart on my way to school Monday morning and bought two decks of cards. At $1 each, this only cost me $2 and a few minutes of time.

When I got to school I opened one deck and taped one card to each deck in my classroom. I opened the other deck and removed the cards that matched those taped to my desk. As students walked in, I handed them one of the cards. They found their match and that was their seat. For example if a student received the ace of diamonds, he or she sat in the desk that had the other ace of diamonds taped to it.

Easy!