Now that I am going back to OR to teach Kindergarten next year, I have a great book dilemma. This time, I do not have access to a huge container that can tote along all of my belongs across the ocean back to the US. I basically can only bring what I can carry on the plane, which makes it quite difficult to bring along 5 heavy boxes of beautiful, fun, colorful, and inspiring books.
As I went through the boxes, I did my best to use my Kindergarten teacher lens, to look at the books and think about whether or not they were "must haves" for my new five-year-old friends. As a first grade teacher, I collected a lot of great sight word books from Scholastic and I know those are coming. Thankfully, they are pretty small and won't take up too much room. When I came across a few classic Dr. Seuss books, I knew those had to come as well. What Kindergarten classroom can exist without The Cat in the Hat?! I also grabbed some "instructional books" like my coin books (also very small and light) and my books about learning social skills, following rules, and sharing (those are definitely important for Kindergarten). Then I added my color books to the pile because Kinder Kiddos need to learn their colors.
As I looked through each box, I came across my Henry and Mudge collection, my Froggy books (Frooooooogy....Whaaaaaaat?), Junie B. Jones, Frog & Toad, Kevin Henkes collection with Chrysanthemum and Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, and lots of great rhyming books. Not to mention an entire box of books that chronologically represent every season, holiday, and special occasion throughout the school year. I wish there was a way I could take them all!
I know I can visit the local library or even the school library and borrow lots of great books, but there is something about having them...owning them...and knowing they belong to our classroom that makes a difference to me. I can't have a Kindergarten classroom that does not have a great classroom library. I can't do without my little colorful baskets of books sorted by author, or theme, or sometimes size (I learned in Ireland that all the books in the library at Trinity College are sorted by size which makes it pretty darn difficult to actually locate a book!). I want to instill a love of reading and learning in my little friends and having interesting books to look at and great stories to read is a big part of that.
I love living in Germany. I am glad we moved here. I loved living in Oregon and I am really excited to go back. But there is something about having a permanent place that is appealing. It is hard to go back and forth because it's hard to bring everything you need and you end up doing without things. Maybe they are important things, maybe they aren't but I am at the point where I think it is easier to just have less stuff! Yikes, did I just say that?
In retrospect, I probably should have just left all of my classroom stuff back in OR in the storage unit, but I didn't know that I would end up in a teaching position that does not require a classroom. I didn't realize those books would just sit downstairs in a lonely storage unit instead of being read by curious kiddos. I feel some sort of weird protectiveness over my books and I just couldn't imagine not having them close by. Now I have to leave them again. I suppose I could look into shipping them, but I am afraid to know how much that would cost. I guess in the grand scheme of things, not being able to bring all my books is not the end of the world. Not even close. I can do without. I can select my favorites and add those to my suitcase along with my clothes and other important stuff. I can make frequent trips to the library and borrow from other teachers. It will be fine. But I can really see how teachers end up with so much stuff when they teach in the same classroom for years at a time. They don't have to do without and they get to enjoy a collection of stuff that just continues to grow and grow. I am jealous!
And I am having this dilemma over my chidlren's books which doesn't even take into consideration all of my teacher books that I want to bring like The Daily Five, Growing Readers, Reading with Meaning, Teaching Student Centered Mathematics, The Art of Teaching Writing, 6+1 Traits of Writing, and all those great book on multicultural education I have acquired while living here.
Seriously, when is someone going to invent teleportation??
What is your favorite children's story?
What is something you could not live without in your classroom?
Should I bring the Froggy books? (I just love hearing the class respond "whaaaat?" when I read the "Froooooogy" part in those stories!)
4 comments:
Love the Froggy books! Reminds me of my childhood! I can't pick just one favorite book - there are too many out there!
Oh boy. It's funny actually, as a K teacher I've invested way more money in games, and other supplies than books because there is no library for games and other supplies and I use the library a lot for my books. Still though with Scholastic and other stuff I have accumulated a lot of books and I don't know what I would do if I had to move.
Just try to remember that you can always borrow any book you want- the kids will love the Froggy books though, but the kids won't mind if they are your books or library books :)
Oh my kids beg to hear the Froggy stories... they are fun to read aloud too. My class loves Max and Ruby... I thought they were a little 'babyish' but they just love, love, Max and his antics. All of the Kevin Henkes books are just precious and probably my all time favorite. Don't forget non-fiction too - my kids love to hear anything about animals or bugs... I try to tie in some sort of non-fiction every day - even if it's just reading from one of the many kids' magazines we get.
I think I would cry if I had to leave my books behind. I have 600+ that span all grade levels (K-8th). I probably would fork over the money to have them shipped because I wouldn't want to be without them.
I have way too many favorites to name just one. I even had my K-2 books out the last two years while I taught 4th grade because some of them are fantastic for reading aloud even to younger kids and the students would giggle when I'd make the characters have different voices ;)
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