My classroom in progress.

So I went into my room today since my husband was at a training and my son was at basketball camp. I had only been there for about ½ hr when I got very overwhelmed. The amount of resources and stuff that the former resource room teaching had was crazy. The space that I have is significantly smaller than the space she had plus I have to share the resources with another teacher so to say trying to go through all that stuff was stressful was an understatement! Don’t get me wrong it is good to have lots of resources when you are working with struggling learners as you never know what tools you will need, but one of the workbooks I opened up was from 1978 (which is a good year, it’s the year I was born).

  So I made a plan to try to find the programs and resources that I had heard of or used in the past first. I organized those resources and then browsed the other stuff to see if there were other things I thought I might use. Anything I knew I wouldn’t use I left for the other teacher to go through when she comes in. I didn’t want to assume that she wouldn’t want to use it.

  Then I began the fun process of unpacking all the boxes from my kindergarten classroom. I actually made very good progress if you look at the pics from my last post and then look at these pics.

This is where the large pile of boxes use to be. Two of the boxes you see in the picture are actually empty I just hadn't taken care of the boxes yet. 

Sorry for the blurry pic. Oh my!

Yes it's starting to feel like my space :)

I also started to make the classroom look like my own, by putting up my family pictures (I really need to get some updated pics).

Love my family....and The Wizard of Oz!

Even my Ruby Red Shoes made it to my new classroom! I wonder what my new school will think when I wear these. :)

  Next I need to work on buying some fabric and superhero stuff. Also printing and laminating the superhero stuff I have bought from TPT.  Since my room is getting in order I am starting to feel better about this transition. I think I will have a lot to learn, but I am excited. I was happy to talk to a few teachers today and one in particular made me feel very welcome and seemed to understand that even though I made the choice to make a change that it is still difficult. I think her and I are going to get along just fine.

  Oh one difference I noticed about my new school…..they can leave toys on the playground and apparently they don’t get stolen. Seems like that is a good sign.

Hope you are enjoying your summer!

~Erica

Cleaning out my porch.

    Since June when I moved all of my stuff out of my old classroom my enclosed porch has been filled with boxes, shelves, and organizers. Well yesterday I moved all of the boxes to my new classroom and I had already moved the organizers. My porch is almost empty of school stuff except for two book shelves.  My husband is pretty happy to have most of the porch back. Here are the pictures of my classroom after I spent just a short time there yesterday.

This is a view of the room from the doorway. In the far left corner is where I am setting up my space. Right now there is a small rectangular table there, but my special education director is kindly ordering me a horseshoe table which will be better for direct instruction. One big bummer is that the whiteboard is not magnetic :( 

This picture shows the wall that is next to the door. There are a lot of shelves which is good because the shelves are already filled with stuff that was there before I arrived. There is actually a lot of stuff that belongs to that room so I will need to go through everything and organize. The boxes on the floor are ones from my old classroom. Lots to go through!

This is the right side of my classroom space. I have to put some more shelves or something against the divider so it’s not so wobbly.

     I really want my classroom space to still look like a real classroom. I am trying to decide on whether to stick to my fish theme or try something else. Any ideas?

     Oh, it seems that the resource room schedule that I created was received very well by the teachers that it impacts. Also when I went to school yesterday I got to meet three of the teachers in the building. They were all very nice and welcoming. Hoping that is a good sign that people will like me at my new school.

~Erica

And the change has begun!

A few weeks ago I attended a conference with my new school district. The attendees from the district were the special education director (my new boss), the school principal, the school district curriculum coordinator, and then little old me. Even though I was pretty intimidated by this it actually helped me to be comfortable with my new district. The conference was about collaborating and co-teaching between regular education and special education. It was very interesting. I left the conference feeling pretty good about the new district I was going to be working in and wanted to get started.

  The following week I started to get organized. I copied and pasted all of the students goals (common core aligned already phew) into a new document that was visually friendly, created a new lesson planning form that may or may not work (won’t know until I try it), and bought grade 1-4 Common Core I can statement posters on TPT  to have for each students’ goals.  The new form is below in case anyone wants to see if or give suggestions: 

I also created this direct instruction tracking form to make sure I am meeting and documenting the IEP requirements. That form is below.

  Then this week I got to meet up with the teacher that I am going to be sharing a classroom with at our new school. I am a little nervous about sharing space since I am use to having a whole classroom to myself, but the other teacher seems very nice so hopefully we will get along just fine.  We decided how the room would be split and now I just have to start getting it beautified! Pics of my new school and classroom are below.

This is my new school! It’s in the country and very quiet and peaceful.

Here is the entry way to the classroom. You can see the big divider that separates our classroom space. 

This is the other teachers side of the room.

This is my side of the room. It certainly needs a little work to make it inviting and organized. I will post pics as I put it together. 

     Yesterday I spent the better part of the morning trying to make a schedule that met the IEP requirements while not interfering with classroom time. So after a few hours I gave up on the pie in the sky idea that I could meet the needs of the IEP and the student would still not miss anything from their regular classroom. As a classroom teacher it's really hard to take a kid out of their regular ed classroom when I know they are missing something. But for better or worse that's all part of my new job. We will see how many regular education teachers get ticked off at me because of the schedule. I created a chart to help me plan. I posted it below. The colors are for different students and for their different IEP instructional requirements. You won't see the names that go along with the colors. The letters on the chart are the teachers first letter so they can look at it to see if there are any glaring issues. Wish me luck! 

Erica

Well tomorrow is the day!

Well tomorrow will be my last day as a kindergarten teacher (at least for awhile who knows what the future holds). It is also my last day working with my Fairfield Primary family. Both of these are very difficult things to say goodbye to. I know I will be sad tomorrow when I say goodbye to my class of 19 5 and 6 year olds, when I say goodbye to people who I have been through a lot with, and when I say goodbye to the Little School with the Big Heart.
I am hopeful that after the sadness of moving on is over I can then be happy about this change which I think will be a good one. 

CHANGE IS HARD, BUT CAN BE FOR THE GOOD. 

Wish me luck tomorrow (that don’t cry all day)!
~Erica

The paths we take

I have significantly mixed emotions about this post. After much thought and consideration I have decided that this will be my last year at the school I have taught at for the last 7+ years. These people are like my family and we have shared so many memories together. 

In the end I needed to do what was best for myself and my family. The thought of not being a kindergarten teacher anymore bring tears to my eyes. Where else can I wear my ruby red shoes and tiara and no one think (or say out loud) how strange I am? Where else will sweet little students write me notes like this:

                                              

I will miss the Little School with the Big Heart with all my heart, but my path is taking me to a different place.

The place that my path is taking me is to become a Resource Room Teacher in in a small K-5 school. I have always loved working with students with special needs and I love teaching all students so I am hoping that this might be the perfect path for me. I am nervous, excited, and looking forward to a new challenge. 

I will continue to write this blog, but the name Kindergarten is Dazzling will need to be changed. So if there is anyone out there with a more creative idea than simple Mrs.Gower's Blog I would love to hear any names you can come up with. 
~Erica