Ten years ago today, I packed up a moving truck with the help of my friends (Edith and Joey) and moved out of Chicagoland. I moved to beautiful sunny, Albuquerque for school. Here I am with an Associate, Bachelors, and Masters degree later, married to the man of my dreams, mommy to the sweetest baby girl (who celebrated her 10 month birthday today) and a brand new teacher! Wow! A lot happens in 10 years!
Well, a lot happened today too! I checked out the keys to my classroom.
I marched my happy behind to my classroom. (Ok, so I got a little lost on the way... but I found it eventually!) I unlocked my door and this is what I saw: (The power was off in the school due to some construction so I couldn't turn on my lights)
Good grief that is a lot of furniture!
Hurray! My Promethean Board- I am so excited to integrate technology into teaching!
The other side of the mountain of furniture.
I must have walked around the mountain of furniture 100 times. Did I mention that the power was out? Which meant there was no air conditioning. Thankfully, it did eventually come on although I hadn't thought to flip the switch to turn the air on in my room until the last hour I was there. (DUH!)
I spent a good portion of my time trying to remember all that I had read in my Debbie Diller "Spaces and Places" book. I wish I could get rid of the rickety old teacher's desk as it was a pain in the you know what to move into position and I wasn't all that sold on it in the first place. So I had "Library, whole group lessons, small group lessons, listening center, and Computer table" spaces all in my head. It wasn't until I got home that I realized that I forgot a writing work station... but that is ok, I want to move a few more things still.
I put up fabric and boarders on most of my bulletin boards already and I even borrowed the vacuum from the custodian to clean up all of the treasures the little one would be sure to find when I bring her tomorrow! I have decided to employ a young baby sitter to come with us tomorrow so that I can focus on getting more accomplished. My niece is going into second grade and I am hoping that seeing what teachers go through to set up a classroom will give her a little excitement for the upcoming school year. I was going to take some "This is what I did all day" pictures, but 5 hours in a hot classroom moving furniture can really exhaust an already tired mommy.
Tune in tomorrow for more in "a day in the life as a new teacher"!
Christy
