Today was our first day and overall I think it went pretty well. I don't really like the beginning of the school year as much as I like that comfortable place that we get to by October and a lot less than that fabulous place we get to by spring. I love it when we've settled in and we've gotten into a groove. At that point, I always think back on the very beginning with a sigh of relief and thankfulness that we can go about our day and it's not all brand new and overwhelming.
But right now, we're just smack in the middle of brand new and overwhelming.
So far I have 25 students. I say so far because I have a feeling that our numbers in half day are going to keep growing. Our full day classes are capped at 25, so they don't get any additional students unless someone leaves, which isn't all that common. I started today with 24 and already got an email after school that I will have an additional child starting Thursday. Although I appreciate the extra day to get ready for said new child, I'd also like for that child to not miss another day of learning routines and procedures. Missing the first few days is crucial even though we continue to practice and repeat everything many time for the immediate future. I know that many would consider me lucky because class sizes are absolutely insane and in the grand scheme 25 is actually quite small. Yet, when those 25 are Kinders, it doesn't seem that small to me. I am already out of backpack hooks and my new student results in a shortage of iPads. My tables are filled and the thought of more kiddos being added gives me anxiety. I guess I will just be thankful I don't have 30. Where would I put them all?
I ofte hear teaching Kindergarten likened to herding cats. That's exactly what I felt like I was doing today. Repeating instructions over and over only to be met with blank stares. Asking children to form a line and showing them exactly where to stand only to be followed by a clump resembling tangled spaghetti.
I can already tell that I have several students who don't understand a lot of English and I have 14 boys which is more boys that I have ever had in the past. Although it's only day 1, I can already tell that my teaching will be different this year. I need to find ways to engage active boys who are smart but want to play and be silly and I need to ensure that I am really focusing on language in the classroom and making my instruction comprehensible for beginning English speakers. I need to find a way to inspire one little cutie to listen and follow directions in a way that doesn't involve saying "please sit down" 47 times every half hour. I spent 2 hours after school today planning just for tomorrow trying to make sure that I balance sitting time with movement. For some reason this year just feels different to me. Maybe it will be a hard year and a great year for personal reflection and learning. Maybe it will be a great year. It's hard to tell from just one day.
In any event, I am relieved that the first day is over. None of the first day disaster dreams I had over the summer came true and I think the kiddos had fun. They loved Pete The Cat and we played the Exercise Game to get the wiggles out. Tomorrow I am going to blow their minds with A TootyTa after we read Howard B Wigglebottom Learns to Listen and Have You Filled a Bucket Today?
I highly recommend A Tooty Ta.
Take a look....
Still Not Feeling Ready
Students come on Tuesday and I still don't feel like I am ready or my classroom is ready. Being part time means a lot of time spent in training during in-service week and not a lot of time working in the classroom getting ready. I have spent a lot of time this week trying to pull things together, but when my four hours are up I am usually dashing off to get Baby Sneaker from daycare, so I don't have the "luxury" of staying until I get things done. And, I've mentioned that taking her to my room is like having a baby tornado tearing things down, so that isn't exactly an option either. Since my classroom photos don't look very different than they did a few weeks ago, I am opting to share some of my favorite back to school books.
A few of these are new to me this year including Too Much Glue and What if Everybody Did That. The message in Too Much Glue is more a tribute to creativity rather than the cautionary tale about using too much glue that I hoped it would be, but it does have a little bit of that. I thought it would be fun to read before we use glue for the first time.
I am hoping to get back into my room this weekend to get a few final things done. I have to say...having my own laminator at home has been SO useful! I spent a few hours last night getting things done, but I was able to do so in my own home while watching TV. So much better than the limited laminator use at school.
A few of these are new to me this year including Too Much Glue and What if Everybody Did That. The message in Too Much Glue is more a tribute to creativity rather than the cautionary tale about using too much glue that I hoped it would be, but it does have a little bit of that. I thought it would be fun to read before we use glue for the first time.
I am hoping to get back into my room this weekend to get a few final things done. I have to say...having my own laminator at home has been SO useful! I spent a few hours last night getting things done, but I was able to do so in my own home while watching TV. So much better than the limited laminator use at school.
What are your favorite back to school books?
What is the very first story you read to your class?
Not Your Typical First Day Back
Going back to work always fills me with excitement in a way (probably mostly for chatting with my co-workers who I haven't seen in a few months), but then the excitement quickly dies down as soon as the first staff meeting is called to order and we get down to business. There's always new goals, new acronyms, and talk of what will be different this year. Don't get me wrong, I like the freshness of the new year and the ability to start over with a new group of kiddos, but it's also daunting. As I stare at a list of kids I've never met, I always have a pretty big fear of what is yet to come. I am looking forward to meeting some kiddos on Wednesday during our supply drop and I am hopeful that by then my classroom will be looking a bit more organized and put together than it looks right now. I barely had anytime outside of our meeting to get anything done because I had to go pick Baby Sneaker up from daycare at 12:30. Thankfully tomorrow I can stay until 2 because my friend volunteered to get her and take her back to my house so I can have some time with my team.
Onto the unconventional part of the day. We received a postcard in the mail shortly after school let out indicating that the entire staff was being asked to meet in the library at 9:30 AM today and we were assigned TRIBE colors. Even support staff who were not paid to be there, were asked to come. So, what's with this tribe business? Well...we had our own little Amazing Race this morning. Families from school volunteered to take part and they had stations set up at their houses with different challenges. Each of the 8 tribes were given an envelope with an address so we had to hop in our cars, drive to a family's house, and complete the challenge. That family gave us our next address and we were off to the next challenge. Some were team challenges that required cooperation, some were word puzzles, and some were individual challenges. Some of the challenges had a set time and some were timed to see who could do them the fastest. All of the scores were tallied and once everyone was back the winner was announced.
When I first heard what we had to do, I will admit, I was not excited. But, it turned out to be really really fun. Our tribes are groups that we will remain connected with all year and we are assigned to help with one PSO event as a tribe, to plan one social event together, and to make sure that we take care of any "sunshine" during the year, which means getting gifts if babies are born, flowers for people who have surgery, cards for deaths in the family etc. I think that this whole tribe thing is a great way to get people connected and that will be a good thing for our staff.
Onto the unconventional part of the day. We received a postcard in the mail shortly after school let out indicating that the entire staff was being asked to meet in the library at 9:30 AM today and we were assigned TRIBE colors. Even support staff who were not paid to be there, were asked to come. So, what's with this tribe business? Well...we had our own little Amazing Race this morning. Families from school volunteered to take part and they had stations set up at their houses with different challenges. Each of the 8 tribes were given an envelope with an address so we had to hop in our cars, drive to a family's house, and complete the challenge. That family gave us our next address and we were off to the next challenge. Some were team challenges that required cooperation, some were word puzzles, and some were individual challenges. Some of the challenges had a set time and some were timed to see who could do them the fastest. All of the scores were tallied and once everyone was back the winner was announced.
When I first heard what we had to do, I will admit, I was not excited. But, it turned out to be really really fun. Our tribes are groups that we will remain connected with all year and we are assigned to help with one PSO event as a tribe, to plan one social event together, and to make sure that we take care of any "sunshine" during the year, which means getting gifts if babies are born, flowers for people who have surgery, cards for deaths in the family etc. I think that this whole tribe thing is a great way to get people connected and that will be a good thing for our staff.
Was today your first day back too?
What did you talk about at your meetings?
Wall Art
Tonight Mr. Sneaker and I were discussing getting some prints for the empty walls in our bedroom. We love these city posters and are thinking of getting this trio.
where we met
where we live
where we spent holidays
I also want to get something like this cool artwork frame for Baby Sneakers's playroom so I can display her cute little projects from daycare and easily switch out projects from month to month.
While I was getting all excited for some wall decorations in my home, I came across something I had pinned that I want to laminate on my classroom walls.
Images found from this site.
Here are some of my favorites...
I probably won't hang this one, but I love it.
(I bet Raye will too!)
I kind of want to frame some of these for Baby Sneakers room too. I heart them!
Do you have any special sayings or words of wisdom you share with your students?
Sight Words
My little project this morning was finishing up my first set of word wall sight word cards. I am not sure what comes with our new reading program, but I know I want to post sight words on my word wall, so I went ahead and made my own set. As we learn each word, I will add it to my word wall below the alphabet letters.
This is a pile of 87, yes that's right, eighty seven sight words that Kinders will learn this year.
printed, cut, laminated and then cut again.
Whew.
I have to redo these because I didn't feed the sheet in straight and the sheet is all buckled and lumpy.
Oops.
Depending on what is provided with our curriculum materials I might make another set because I have another wall space where I plan to post words to review.
If the kiddos have to learn 87 words, I want those words in their face
all. the. time.
My colleague came across this post and this post on a blog called i Teach With iPads about personalized learning and helping students develop ownership of their learning. She is planning to have her full day Kinders manage their own learning portfolios where they add stickers to standards they have mastered.
In half-day Kinder, I am curious about the idea, but I need to pare it down to something reasonable for the short time I have the kiddos. I may focus on objective skills in reading and early literacy rather than all of the standards. I am thinking about making a placemat sized (11 X 17) version of our word wall so that students can add stars or stickers next to each word they can read. I would have them bring their personal word wall with them when I assess 1:1 and then based on their assessment add stickers with them. They would then keep their personal word wall in their work bucket so they could have everyday access to the list of words they still need to practice. Possibly, I would add the letter sounds to the back so they could earn stickers for mastering sounds as well.
At this point I am just playing with the idea and I'm not sure how it would work, but I feel like I definitely need to make some changes in order to help my kiddos be successful at learning 87 words.
How do you help kiddos learn sight words?
If you have any great activities, I'd love to hear about them!
Productive
I had a nice little productive afternoon in my classroom since my in-laws are visiting and they were able to stay at home with Baby Sneaker. I feel like I finally got some solid organizing done and I am very thankful because certain parts of my room have been a mess since I moved in. Now that I share, I have less space of my own, yet there is tons of storage space in the room and some cabinets are still empty even with two teachers sharing the room.
My goals today were to
finish organizing my books-check!
organize my desk-check!
organize my file cabinet-check!
move my games and activities to the cabinet where I took my books from-check!
I'm really happy with how my little library came out. All the sections are labeled and I know I will have a much easier time finding books when I need them this year and will be much more prompt and timely in putting them back where they belong! I hope that my students don't think it's fun to pull the red dividers out.
I also organized my curriculum materials and put them on this shelf that is next to my desk. I may put labeled card stock dividers in here to separate my subjects just like I did with my picture books.
I remembered to take photos of my display boards this time because the borders are up now, but I think I need to redo them because I didn't staple them enough and there are gaps. Boo. I also need to trim the edges still.
My phonics and reading walls look so plain, but I am definitely waiting until we have our Journeys training to put anything up on the reading wall and the phonics wall gets built up as we learn, so I don't start the year off with much on there.
The last major project I want to complete before school starts is sorting the math pages from our student workbooks and homework books. We never use the workbooks the way we get them, so we have the bindings cut off and them sort them so we have a class set of each page. Usually I have parent helpers do this, but we had boxes sitting around for SO long last year because it took a long time and I want all this stuff organized and put away right off the bat this year. I am not sure exactly when I will get this accomplished, but I want to make an effort. This year, we will also be sorting our pages by math strand so we can easily access pages that relate to whatever strand we are working on. I don't really feel like I can have a parent sort the pages like that because I need to think about it myself, so all the more reason to do it before school starts.
I definitely feel like I could have stayed in my room for several more hours, but I wanted to come home and play with my baby girl. Hopefully I can get in there a few more times before we are officially back.
Do you like organizing your classroom or do you feel like it's a chore?
I heart organizing!
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