Tending the Eclectic Kinder-Garden

Yay! Good for you!

On the first day you can get in to the school (and presumably, your classroom), make sure to take your digital camera, a measuring tape, a notebook and pencil, your lunch, snacks and drinks for the day, and your calendar. If you have supplies, books, and other teaching gear you’d like to drop off, go for it, but don’t plan on opening them!

Here’s why: there are a few things you need to do before you wave your magic wand,*poof*, producing the world’s greatest kindergarten classroom in cloud of glitter.

If this is your first year teaching at an already established school, chances are you’re not the first teacher to use the classroom.  You  might walk into a completely empty room.  You could walk in to find a mish-mash of furniture, equipment, and curriculum materials.  You might find that your classroom has served as the storage or catch-all room for the rest of the school for the past five years.  Or you might walk in to a fully furnished, fully equipped, almost completely developmentally appropriate  teaching space, like I did this week:

ACK!  What?  Before you have a stroke, let me point out a few things.  1) As a teacher new to this district, I’ve gone to school before many of the “regular” teachers have returned from their summer vacations.  The summer cleaning staff is still dusting, washing, repairing, and vacuuming the rooms in preparation for the start of school.   2) Take a looksie at the bookcases along the back walls.  Everything sitting on TOP of the shelves…is MINE.  And those shelves make a full “L” along two walls in the room.  All of the items on the lower shelves were already in the class.  3)  All of the furniture has been moved to the center of the room so that the janitorial staff can clean the carpets around it.  Once several more furniture shifts take place, the carpet will hopefully be shampooed.

Dear Daughter and the Toddler came with me to inventory what was in the room on Day One.  You need to inventory your room as well.  The inventory might be difficult to do because previous teachers will store the classroom’s curriculum materials and supplies, but they won’t organize it or return everything to its original location and condition.  If the last teacher liked to keep half of the language arts books at the reading table and the other components of the curriculum kit at his/her desk, or in small tubs for individual students to use, chances are, you’ll find that “system” still in place when you arrive.  The best thing to do is to open every cabinet, cubby, and drawer.  If you find items that seem to go together or have matching storage boxes, pull them all out and place them together in an easy-to-get-to location.  Here’s a photo of the math, science, and language arts materials and curriculum “kit” items I’ve found so far:

It’s a “rough sort,” meaning I haven’t opened up all of the boxes or checked to see if the workbooks or flashcards, assessment booklets or supplemental activities are in order, much less present.  I still have big books and flip charts to find and add to this pile so that I can reassemble the kits as much as possible.

You can sort your classroom items pretty easily for your inventory: furniture, curriculum kit elements, math manipulatives, language arts materials, puppets, computer equipment, stereo/headphones, toys, workbooks, arts and crafts supplies, classroom/school binders for policies, procedures, a professional library, etc.  Doing a rough sort lets you know what you have, the condition of your classroom furniture and supplies, and points you in the direction for creating your to-do and wish lists.

I sorted paper products:

Then determined what I had for crayons, glue, kleenex, etc.:

A majority of my afternoon was spent sorting math manipulatives and language arts materials.  The blue tubs and the clear containers with white lids are ALL math items:

These two sets of shelves are full of puzzles, and ONLY puzzles (ignore the storage bins up on top, that’s part of my seasonal decor, which I’ll try to get to on Monday):

These clear and yellow bins are all fine/gross motor activities (Legos, building blocks, lincoln logs, etc.):

The bins already available in the classroom come in primary colors and are perfect for storage on the shelves.  Blue will be for math, the yellow is for fine/gross motor, and next week I’ll sort language arts/literacy items into red bins.  Green will house science materials, and orange…who knows?  Dear Daughter will get a treat from Dairy Queen on Monday afternoon after she peels every sticker and label off of the bins in my class.  If you don’t have children to be helpers in your room, consider asking a colleague if s/he has teens for hire who would like to earn their favorite fast food meal for lunch in exchange for doing the little things.

*****

Before you leave for the day, measure your room.  Photograph it as well.  Photograph the ceiling, the insides of cabinetry, the bathrooms, where your windows are located, your furniture, everything.  You’ll want the photos to refer to later, possibly in the wee hours when inspiration comes to you in a dream, waking you!  Take notes too.  How many staple boards or corkboards do you have for display?  How many windows might you have to make or purchase curtains for?  How many electrical outlets do you have and where are they located?  How about computer jacks?  If you have open storage shelves like I do, and you’re considering covering them with curtains to reduce the visual noise (and possible temptation for more impulsive students), measure, measure, measure so you know how much fabric to buy (and purchase plain ‘ol clearance material, okay?).  Make sure to ask your principal or building administrator if you’re ALLOWED to staple items into the walls, hang decor from the ceiling, or affix hook and loop tape to hang curtains before you do it!

*****

Your calendar will help you remember when your new teacher orientation will take place, teacher inservices too, and you can set goals for each day you’re able to spend in your classroom setting up.  You’ll want a day for inventory (and requesting furniture/materials if necessary) and your “rough sort,”  a day for furniture arrangement and the setting up of centers (with materials located where they will be utilized the most), another day for bulletin boards and classroom decor, a day for lesson plans, your parent newsletter, and grade level planning meetings, and another day getting your first week’s activities, materials, stories, and required school safety drill practice planned and prepped in full.  Make sure to ask if your school will host an Open House before school starts, or if you need to prepare for initial observations and assessments of your students before they arrive for their official First Day.

*****

If you have the time or just feel the urge to lay claim to YOUR classroom before you leave on Day One, you can set up your Essential Three that will help you through the rest of the week:

Welcome to Kindergarten!

Tags: classroom, kindergarten, organization, tips

… to bring you a review of my day!

All of today’s blogging time was set aside for mother/daughter eye exams, grocery shopping, drug screening/testing for my employment, and a visit to my new school to pick up keys and drop off classroom materials.  I think it’s time for me to post some drafts in the queue just in case, but until then:

* I still don’t care for the blowy-puffy-here’s-grit-in-your-eye procedure that optometry techs seem to enjoy watching patients endure at the beginning of an eye exam.  What *is* that thing, anyway?  Is my eye dusty?  Are you testing me on my blink and flinch coordination?  Are you checking my mascara’s and eyeliner’s staying power?  My eyes water just thinking about it!

* I’ve been experiencing some confusing encounters at the grocery store I’ve been frequenting here since our arrival.  It’s on post, and each time I’ve gone, I’ve been approached by older ladies and gentlemen asking if my kids are “ready for VBS.”  Huh?  Each time their table has been surrounded by other people, so I’ve only been asked that one question before  the greeter has turned his or her attention to someone actually interested enough to stop and look at their display.  It wasn’t until this morning’s trip that I finally saw the table itself- and realized that VBS stands for “Vacation Bible School,” not “very big shoes” or “very bratty siblings.”  Enough with the abbreviations folks.  I get it with my husband’s military-jargon, I get it with all sorts of edu-speak, and I see it as I try to figure out just what my daughter is asking me for when she text messages me on her phone.

Spell…the…whole…thing…out…please.  And if you won’t,  please just step aside as I maneuver my way through the store with my thrilled-with-the-acoustics-toddler to get a loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter.

* Drug screening.  Today was the first time *this* kindergarten teacher has had to walk in to a medical facility, surrender her i.d., allow someone else to lock up her purse and do the little aim-for-the-plastic-cup-routine with an audience standing right outside the bathroom door.  Oh, and I wasn’t allowed to flush the potty afterward either.  Yep, everything had to be as…witnessed…as possible.  Wow.  Just…wow.

* Yes indeedy, I did get the key to my classroom today!  Dear Daughter and I were so excited, so pleased, so impressed with what we saw as we walked through the school, peeking into classrooms, lounges, cafeterias, etc… and when we got to see my room, I just about cried.  This is the first time I’ve been given a classroom that is fully supplied.  FULLY.  I guess I’m no longer at a Title I school, and the difference leaves me in awe, and saddened.  Standardization across the nation?  Honeys, it isn’t happening.

The classroom is beautiful.  Most of it is appropriate for kindergarten, though my teacher’s desk is fixed to the wall as part of a built-in, and it seems I can’t lower it to a better height for use as the reading table.  The students’ coat cubbies are actually closets with doors (another interesting safety issue) and I have tons of storage for manipulatives, books, etc.  I’ll be sharing a bookroom and a set of student bathrooms with one of my colleagues by way of two “walk-through” areas.

* I’ve brought home a school binder that seems to have our policies and procedures explained in it, but getting them committed to memory is becoming more difficult with each new move I make.  Every school has its own set of rules, procedures, routines.  The first one used clipboards for fire drill and stranger danger drills, the next had little red and green paddles we were to hold up outside during a fire alarm along with scrap pad sign-off sheets that had to be turned in to the office after each drill.  The next required a binder or notebook with students’ names and contact info, while at this, my newest school, who knows what the variation will be.  In the past six years, I have had to follow four different rulebooks on school procedures for fire drills, xerox copying, attendance reporting, lunch requests, stranger danger, parent pick-up, field trip requests, classroom newsletters, professional development, parent teacher conferences, NCLB documentation, lesson plan formats and due dates, social club dues and rules, phone etiquette, lunch time and recess procedures, before and after school bus duty, parking space assignments, computer lab sign up, nurse pass procedures, email and internet do’s and don’ts, office errands, teacher lounge clean-up, grade level planning times, preps, and tornado safety practice.  Talk about a jumble.

*****

Off to bed (this is a late night posting)- I have a classroom to inventory and set up in the morning!

Tags: school, teaching