The L-M-N-O-P's of Back to Preschool!

It's been a busy first three days back so far....

L:
             Learning.  I have learned new faces, new names to go with these faces, and new policies and procedures.
            Lists.  I have made more lists about more topics in the last three days than I have made since the beginning of LAST school year...  Aye-yi-yi!

M:
            Meetings.  I spent Monday in staff meetings all day.  ALL DAY.  We had to receive our class lists, new policies, binders for these new policies, you name it....we received it.  I have also met the new children and their parents that I will have in my class.  It's shaping up to look like it will be an eventful year...I think the little boys I have will keep me on my toes! :-)
            Moving.  Moving boxes of materials back into the classroom.  Moving supplies into their shelves.  Moving furniture to create the perfect learning space.  A lot of the time it is moving one thing from one place or area to another, just to move the first back again!

Classroom arrangement with no materials on the shelves (that will come next week).

 

 

N:

            Notes.  During each meeting (whether it is a staff meeting or home visit meeting with my families), I'm taking notes.  I think I should have been writing all summer to stay conditioned!

 

O:

            Overwhelmed!  With all of the work that needs done, all of the new things to learn and know quickly, and all of the new faces and names I become overwhelmed.  Thankfully, I work with a fantastic group of women who not only share the same overwhelmingness at this time of year, but understand it and are willing to help make it much less stressful.

 

P:

            Planning.  I have done nothing but plan since returning to the school year (truthfully, it's been since I walked out the doors last May for summer vacation)!  I've planned how to schedule my time prepping (yet another P word) for school to start on September 10.  I've planned out home visits, classroom arrangement, materials for each learning center, bulletin boards.  I (although not written down yet) have been planning lessons and activities, too.  And though this time of year is the most time-crunching when it comes to planning....I will spend the entire year doing nothing but planning - I guess it's a good thing I'm organized! ;-)

 

 

 

Aside from all of this back-to-school stuff, I've been able to kick back and relax with two beautiful evenings spent at my favorite Mexican restaurant in Rootstown - Mi Rancho!  Tuesday evenings are Classic Car Cruise-Ins and tonight is Bike Night.  I plan to sit on the patio, enjoy the music, and visit with some of my most favorite people!  Last night was a treat, Grandma and Grandpa joined us for Mexican dinner and conversation, among dancing to the "oldies" and checking out the cars.

United Art & Education, and Mailbox, and Scholastic, OH MY!

Something I just love to do is go drooling at "teacher stores" with my good friend, Veronica.  She is in education too, and we've made it a normal thing to do to go find all the greatest deals on "stuff" for our classrooms and teaching.

Well, this summer...Veronica introduced me to a store in Strongsville.  United Art & Education.  (It really should be called "United EDUCATION & Art" - because it was about 90% education materials and 10% artist materials).  It's about an hour away from me...but if I go to her place in Medina first and we do lunch and the Strongsville Mall (hey, what lady doesn't like to go to a good mall now and again?!), that hour away quickly seems like no time at all.  I hit the jackpot with my first trip to this new-found teacher haven!  It's been a longstanding joke in my center that my classroom is full of "ROCKSTARS," so this year I decided (on a whim at UA&E) that I was going to do a classroom-wide rockstar theme.  I found the coolest rockstar-esque bullentin board border that I will use for my parent welcome board, among other things.  And UA&E had rockstar themed name tags - cha-ching!  I'll laminate those babies, use a Sharpie to write my kiddos' names on them, and label their cubbies - the best part - when I have students leave and/or enter my room, I can easily erase and replace names.  (Yes, I said erase Sharpie - Mr. Clean (or other off-brand) Magic Erasers are AMAZING!)  This will make cubby labelling so much easier as the year goes on!!

I've also devoted this summer to bettering my resource library.  This is where Mailbox comes in.  I've been debating the last couple of school years if I want to subscribe to the Mailbox Magazine, or just borrow current issues from the library...well, I decided on the latter.  I may change my mind this year...we'll see.  It isn't expensive, it's just something I never got serious about subscribing to - although I do love the great ideas I have gotten from each magazine I've used...  I decided to look around on the Mailbox website this summer during my time off work and found a great, free resource!  And it is SO easy!  I literally signed up and started receiving e-mails about free ideas for activities, classroom management, worksheets (which I'm not normally a fan of, but I'll take a look anyhow - it's free, why not?), and all sorts of things.  Plus, I have already ordered three alphabet resource books and got free shipping and $10.00 off my order since it was over $50.00...not a bad deal!  I especially liked this deal because two of the three books were books I had been "drooling" over in my teacher store trips for the last two years - the third book was a book I didn't know about, but follows the same format as the other two...yay! 

Scholastic OH MY!  I've been building my children's book library since I began student teaching in college.  But it has really grown since I joined Scholastic my first year of teaching (2007-2008 school year).  I submit a few orders a year, and get free shipping on all of them because I spend $20.00 or more on each order - BUUUUUT that $20.00 usually covers an armful of children's books and occasionally teacher resource books.  I already have books saved on a September order form!

It's Like the First Day of School!

So all summer long I've been reading blogs.  Blogs of friends, fellow teachers, family...  And I started thinking, hey - this could be fun!  I couldn't decide what exactly I wanted to base my blog on.  Since my mind is as organized as library shelves, I didn't want to....er, COULDN'T just start posting.  I needed a basis, a theme to write about.  And then it hit me - why not create a place to share the goings on of my preschool classroom?! (And of course, since I will have already started a blog, I will probably slip in some of my life's goings on too... :-)).

School for most teachers and children is starting soon (if they haven't said good-bye to their summers already).  I head back to begin our teacher trainings, staff team-building, and home visiting on Monday.  And of course, the ever-so anticipated preparing of the classroom....labelling, organizing, arranging, decorating, lesson-planning, the list goes on and on, and on.  And yet, it never feels 100% completed by the day the children come!  I will have two weeks to prepare for the bright new (and some returning) faces of this year's class.  Now, to most public school teachers, I'm sure they would love to have two weeks to prepare at school, on the clock.  Notice I said "home visits"....these will take up just about every second I have during this two weeks, that I'm not in a staff training or meeting of some sort.  My two weeks will be quickly diminished, so time management and strict planning is a key factor here...

Until Monday, I do have some fun things planned to wrap up my summer vacation.  I'll visit the local fair, Portage County Randolph Fair, tonight for the derby with a very good friend.  And the whole family will return on Saturday for fair food, fun, and games.  The fair is always a bittersweet event...  On one hand, it's the fair!  On the other hand, it means summer is coming to an end.  But that end brings the brightly colored leaves of fall, apple crisp, apple cider, and my husband's personal favorite - football!