1) Stay tuned for a new blog design! I have absolutely zero time in the upcoming weeks to work on it because I am prepping for my second college course and that is all consuming, BUT I can't wait to create an updated design with the new digital kit I just purchased. It's super cute and will fit perfectly with my new role as an ELL teacher.
2) Today, after about 10 years of being cyber friends, I am finally going to meet one of my great blogger friends in real life!
I started moving into my new classroom this morning. The custodian helped me move some things from my old classroom to the new one, so I could figure out how to make things fit. I still have to put everything away for the summer, but at least I have some peace about how it will look.
Check out the before and after.
I still have tons of boxes and piles to move over, but that will have to wait for tomorrow.
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!
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.
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!
