An instructor has specific needs in regard to what types of furniture will best suit his or her teaching. Thus, the right classroom furniture is essential for the teacher in order to conduct his or her class in an orderly fashion.

The teacher’s desk:

A teacher’s desk is one of the most important if not the most important piece of classroom furniture. If teaching elementary through high school (or K-12), the teacher is very unlikely to have his or her own office, as many college professors do. Thus, the teacher must have a desk that will be able to contain and organize all of the students work: graded, un-graded, charting individual student progress etc. The teacher will have system for organization and if the desk is not big enough, the drawers are not spacious enough, or if the drawers are too hard to work with—there will be major problems.

Filing cabinets

If there are major problems of the nature I addressed above with your classroom furniture, one alternative to purchasing a new desk for the teacher when the current desk is inadequate would be to purchase a filing cabinet for the teacher to keep beside the desk, this way he or she can be more organized and this may be a much less expensive option.

Desks for elementary students:

When considering classroom furniture, namely, desks for students, depending on the age group children should have specific types of desks. Younger children in elementary school—or any students who remain in the same classroom all day, will need desks where they can also store their class materials. This is typical for elementary grades, a desk that is relatively large and opens completely so that children can store their books, pencils, papers, assignments etc.

Desks for older students:

When the students are older they will have lockers in the hallways for storing their class materials. Therefore a desk similar to those used in elementary classrooms would not be appropriate. The desks that Middle School and High School students usually require will have much smaller surfaces and will have no drawers or openings of any kind. The best ones come with a little groove across the top where they can set a pencil or a pen so that it does not roll off the desk. The chairs are plain and the desks themselves are not too costly.

Shelves:

When you consider what classroom furniture you will need, do not forget about shelves—shelves are important for storing class resources such as books, learning tools, special rewards, stickers, equipment needed for science experiments etc. Elementary classrooms have more use for shelves than the older grades—simply because the older students usually have everything they need. Often if there are shelves there will be only a few—and they will be small.

Of course, science class is one of the exceptions to the rule. In this case the classroom furniture needed will be the setup for a science lab area. The tables and work stations in that area will usually have shelves and drawers to store things like beakers, droppers, microscopes etc., thus any shelves required around the rest of the classroom will be few to none.

Anne Clarke
http://www.homeroomteacher.com/