Hi Ruth, I know the Active Learning approach can be daunting to begin with but I do believe it to be effective. I've been working in this way for a couple of years now and I'm still altering the way I do things. I think it's important to discover what way works best for you. My general day starts with the children coming in and self-registering then choosing an activity. The children can sit where they choose and there are enough chairs for them all. They can choose something I've already set out or something that's not. I try to have my resources clearly labelled and accessible. I have a few set bays in the class which pretty much remain constant. Those are the library, music corner and play area (at present a toy shop). This is a 'child initiated' part of the day. At half nine music tells the children it's song and rhyme time. Thereafter I set two of my three groups on activities related to their maths/language for the day - 'teacher initiated', and I keep the other group for a session of direct teaching - 'teacher intensive'. I rotate this system in the morning up until lunchtime which I find works well. The afternoons are generally topic based but obviously very active while also being differentiated.
There is a lot more organisation and planning in this approach and money certainly has to be made available to buy/make a variety of resources.
Hope this is of some help,
Donna