School's Out!

Yesterday was my last day of school. 

My last day of teaching Kindergarten.

I honestly don't know if I will ever teach Kindergarten again....

Half-day was perfect for me and at this stage in my life I am really happy working half-time and then balancing that with teaching college courses online or in the evenings. Beginning in the fall Kindergarten will be full-day statewide, so that chapter of my teaching has come to a close. 

This morning I met with my new teammate to talk about how the ELD department operates and what I can expect in my new role. We sat down for about 2 hours and it was really helpful. I am really looking forward to this new chapter. 

I think I am most excited at the prospect of getting a K-5 perspective. I did my student teaching in third grade and taught first grade for three years before moving to Germany. In Germany I supported grades K-12, but that was with push-in support. I have never been the one driving the curriculum and instruction for second, fourth, or fifth graders and I think it will be really interesting as well as beneficial to gain experience in teaching a variety of grade levels instead of just the little ones. Not to mention, I am excited that I will actually be doing what I am teaching about in my college courses. That was a nice turn of events.  

We went over the lists for groups and I will be teaching the 3's and 4's (intermediate and early advanced students). So far it looks like my largest group will have about 15 kiddos and I saw some familiar names on the lists of kids that I had in Kinder that I will teach again.

There are a lot of unknowns about scheduling and official groups until later in the summer, so I am not sure that I can even do a lot of planning yet, but I feel like I have a better handle on what the role will be like. 

Tomorrow I have to finish packing up my classroom in order to move to my new closet (just kidding!) classroom. On Friday, the custodian and I are going to move my large carpet into the new classroom and try to figure out what type of tables will work best for the limited space beyond the carpet. Because I am a ton of Kindergarten curricula behind, the amount of stuff I have actually doesn't seem like that much compared to how much I had to move last year (because I was moving all the K curricula). 

The other great thing about teaching ELD is that I will start the room with empty walls. I won't "decorate" or make displays beforehand because everything that goes on the walls will be created during lessons. That in combination with the fact that ELD services don't start until the second week of school seem like they will make for a more relaxed beginning of the school year! 

Are you officially out for the summer? 

If not, when is your last day? 

Summer Reading

With summer vacation just around the corner, I am gearing up for some summer reading. My first month of summer is going to be consumed with prepping for, and teaching, two courses at PSU. They're both week-long, all-day courses, so the prep work is crazy in order to have activities and instruction to fill all that time. 

Once those courses are over, I will be set to full on start prepping for my new role as an ELL teacher. 

I just purchased two new books that I am excited to read. 

Stay tuned for some mid-summer book reviews! 

What's on your summer reading list? 

Access Granted

I FINALLY got to stand in the middle of my new room and look around today. 

(Thank you field day for emptying the entire school at 11:30 so I could sneak in and take pics!)

There's some good news...

I actually have some tall storage cabinets.

But, I can already see that once I bring in my big rug, I am going to be really short on space for tables. I plan to center the rug along the wall with the whiteboard where these tables currently are. 

As you can see from this next photo, there isn't a whole lot of space on the other side of the tables. 

At least there's a nature view to the left...

At least since the whiteboard is small, there is wall space on both sides that I could post visuals on. 

I cannot wait to get in here and move furniture around. 

I think I will forego my teacher desk and just use whatever type of table I bring in for my older students. I also might forego the big set of drawers that is on wheels as I don't have too much stuff stored in my current one. 

Also, my teammate had a genius idea and suggested I look into getting a clothesline to hang from wall to wall in front of that partition so that I can at least clip students' work, visuals, or posters to the line. Hopefully the custodian will be on board with that! 

I am so excited to get started on making this new space my own!

New Space

Thank you very much for all the sweet comments after my last post. I literally thought there was no-one out there reading my blog anymore so it made me really happy to know that there are a few followers hanging on! You have definitely inspired me to keep blogging. I do really love writing, I think I just prefer blogging over the summer when I am in planning/organizing mode. I love sharing ideas for the upcoming year and photos of my classroom as it comes together. 

Once again, I get to embark upon the fun adventure of moving to a new classroom at the end of the year. Well, let's be honest, when room assignment changes involve many people, the moving process continues all summer because each person cannot move into the new room until the previous person vacates it and that takes fooooorrrrevvvvverrrrr. Ideally, I would be able to get my stuff into the new room and partially set up sooner rather than later. I have already started packing up my stuff and giving away lots of resources/materials/items that I don't foresee using. 

Why would I just start giving stuff away you ask?

It's because my new classroom is the size of a closet. 

Okay, that was a gross exaggeration.

But, my new room is a lot smaller than my current room and it has a lot less storage.

I think...

I haven't actually been able to get into my new room yet. 

I know that sounds strange but it has to do with the awkwardness of job reassignments. 

Enough said. 

I am itching to get in there and take a good look around, take photos, and start planning out my room. 

But I think that needs to wait until summer break. 

Since I will be teaching small groups of students in grades K-5, I know that I will need various wall space areas dedicated to each grade level. I don't plan on having the same thematic units for all of my groups, so I have to find a way to dedicate space for each individual grade level. 

I have no idea how I am going to swing that. 

Given that the room is very small, I considered not bringing along my very large rectangular carpet, but I decided to bring it and here's why...

1) I love it

2) It was expensive

3) Little kids need designated spots for their buns. My oval carpet does not have said spots and mayhem ensues each and every time we transition to that carpet in the form of flailing arms and legs, hands that are not kept to selves, and friends talking to each other when I am teaching. 

::sidebar:: I just recently assigned spots on that carpet and have kids sitting in four rows in number order (each child is my class has a particular number) and since assigning spots, life on that carpet has been far more pleasant. But, I can't take that carpet with me because it belongs to Kindergarten.

4) I always need a carpet space for gathering. Who wants to read a book to kids sitting at tables? Not I said Sneaker Teacher. 

So, my thought is that I can mainly use the carpet for instruction with my younger groups (K-1), maybe K-2) and I can use tables for my upper grades. 

Don't you love my fabulous floor plan? I think the round tables I currently have will work better than rectangle tables, but I need to make sure I can accommodate all of my older students at the tables. I won't know the size of my groups until fall. I don't *think* I will have more than 12 students in my upper grade level groups, but really who knows...

The bummer of this room is that the wall to the left is actually a divider because the other half of the classroom is the Kindergarten work room and the Tag Teacher's office. Then the wall on the bottom is a wall of windows.

So, I basically have not a lot of wall space in which to designate spots for all my groups.

::sigh::

I'll figure it out and it will be fabulous. 

One of the cool things about being a "specialist" is that the classroom does not belong to just one class. Therefore, I don't need to prepare a lot of the things I would usually prepare at the beginning of the year. And, specialists don't get students until like week 3... #bonus

I am really excited to get into the room and start moving furniture around. I really hope everything fits and I can make it work. 

Are you moving for next year or staying put? 

Where to go from here...

Starting in the fall,  I will no longer be a Kindergarten teacher. I have definitely neglected this blog this past year (I feel like it's neglected while school is in session and then revived over the summer when I have more time and I am preparing for the upcoming year). 

I have contemplated just calling it quits as I am not even sure anyone is out there reading anymore since there haven't been many new posts over the course of the school year, but I feel like I have spent so much time on this blog since I first started it. I certainly don't want to just delete it...

So, I am trying to figure out what to do going forward.

If I want to continue the blog, I have to make some changes because I certainly can't advertise that readers will be reading about the wonderful world of Kindergarten if I am teaching English Language Development. At one point in time I designed the blog and created the header, but I honestly don't even know if I am capable of that anymore...

I'm feeling stuck. 

Ideally, I would post much more frequently and would share lots of great teaching ideas with amazing images and examples of lessons and student work. My blog would be a place other teachers would come to for inspiration and resources. 

I just don't know if I have all that in me particularly since I will be learning/doing a new job and teaching college courses and being a mom. I kind of feel lost among the blogging world at this point because I don't have the time or energy to post about what I teach and I don't create cool products and sell them on TPT. Sneaker Teacher has become just a not so frequently visited space on the web. 

I'm kind of sad about that, but I am just not as inspired to blog as I used to be. 

For anyone out there who actually might be reading this...what should I do?

Revamp the blog? 

Let it go?

The Word Is Out

I know, it's been awhile...

This year has been going really well, but I just am not finding time to blog about it.

You'll forgive me, right?

I had to come back to share some exciting news!

Not another baby sneaker...

A new job!

Next year, Oregon is moving to statewide full-day Kindergarten. Because I want to continue working part time, I will not be able to continue teaching Kindergarten (my district doesn't offer job shares in grades K-2). So...after lots of waiting, lots of worrying, and lots of questions, I found out that I will teaching ELD next year!

I am super excited because I will be staying at my current school, still teaching part-time, and moving to a new position that I am really looking forward to.

I've been teaching college courses that are part of the ESOL endorsement program, so I am really excited to experience my university world coming together with my teaching world.

Woo hoo!