Saturday, September 10, 2016

Two Days in Kindergarten


The first few days of kindergarten are always a crazy wonderful combination of the honeymoon-we-all-love-each-other stage mixed with the deer-in-the-headlights-because-everything-is-new-and-terrifying stage.  Not to mention the four-year-olds-still-don't-know-how-to-do-school-yet-so-we-spend-all-our-time-learning-to-raise-our-hands stage.  Then there's the fact that I have to stop my lesson every five seconds because sweet Nicka has these long legs that she doesn't have control over yet and can't quite figure out how to bend them in order to sit crisscross applesauce.

Here are a few highlights from the last two days.

Centers.


Independent play


Recess


Crafts




Working hard - learning numbers, letters, colors, and shapes


Flag raising ceremony (mine are on the far left)


Lunch


And an after school visit from my former students.


 (miss this girl!!)

 (checking out the new tattoo)

Well, there you have it.  A quick glimpse into my crazy, wonderful world!


Friday, September 2, 2016

CLASSROOM REVEAL

I’ve been back in Haiti for two weeks now and I am pleased to say that life has settled back to normal…well, as normal as life gets around here.

As I’m settling back in, the number one task on my to-do list is…that’s right…back to school prep!  Preparing for the new school year is a daunting enough task as it is, but this year, on top of the normal cleaning, organizing, and planning, I also had the GIGANTIC task of moving classrooms.

It was with the weight of this task on my shoulders that I walked into my old classroom Monday morning and was greeted with 6 weeks worth of dust, bugs, and rat droppings.

…great…

But I was also greeted with something else.  Ten smiling faces and twenty hands willing to help.

My new classroom used to be the computer lab, so while my high school helpers moved out the computers and furniture, my younger helpers got started on moving book baskets and wiping down anything and everything they could get their hands on.

Here was my new classroom first thing Monday morning.


Those high school boys made quick work of it and before I knew it, Jhaskiline was sweeping the floor and Melissa was washing away the cobwebs from the walls.  Pretty soon, it looked like this.


 But that was the easy part.  We still had all of this in my old classroom to deal with.



My helpers were more than happy to take care of that.  Here they are wiping down literally everything.  (I had to stop Kayla from turning every page of The Beginner's Bible to wipe them all down.)


After all that hard work, they deserved a play-break.


3 days, 10 helpers, 2 large buckets of water, 4 dirty rags, 2 spilled bags of stickers, and a million pieces of scattered glitter later... here is the final product...

Colors wall, school supplies bookshelf, craft shelves, toy tubs, and classroom library.

Student table, number signs, letter signs, and WELCOME sign.

Carpet (to be) area, focus board, morning meeting board.

Teacher chair, morning meeting board, Whole Brain Learning rules.

Behavior management.

Daily schedule.

The whole enchilada.