Classroom and School Tomorrow

The day has arrived. My first day in the classroom.

Or at least that is what tomorrow will be for me. I'm pretty nervous tonight and I'm hoping that I'll be able to get to sleep early. It might be hard because of the jitters I have. Tomorrow I will have half the class (10 kids) and then I'll have the other half on Tuesday. Wednesday is my first day with all of the kids. It will be me, Fari (my assistant), and...20 four-year olds.

Should be interesting.

I thought that I would show you some pictures of my classroom. As some of you might know, pre-school classrooms are usually divided into 'centers.' My classroom has about 9 different centers, sometimes more, depending on the day. The kids can go to the different centers depending on what they feel like doing during the day. It's all up to the kids and the choices they make. Kids at this age learn best through play, so we try to make the day fun and interesting. We also have to do certain things during the day, since we're a federally funded program. Here's my schedule!

12:30-1:00 Arrival/Wash Hands/Lunch
1:00-1:10 Wash Hands/Brush Teeth
1:10-1:20 Large Group
1:20-1:50 Outside Time
1:50-3:50 Come Inside/Wash Hands/Free Choice/ Small Group
3:50-4:20 Wash Hands/Snack/Wash Hands
4:20-4:30 Goodbye Circle

As you can see, we do a lot of hand-washing. I'll likely explain more about the curriculum we follow and the themes in the classroom as time goes by. This will just be a little introduction to my life as a Head Start teacher.

But first, a little tour of the classroom...

This is what the classroom looks like as you walk in the front door. Everything printed in the classroom needs to be in both English and Spanish, so you can see 'Welcome' and 'Bienvenido' up on the wall. I made those! I must say that I was kind of excited that they turned out. My mom will be the first to tell you that I've never been very good at cutting things out with scissors.

This is a little glimpse at our 'Welcome Area.' It's a space in the classroom where parents can sit with their children if their kids are having a hard time separating from them. So we put a lot of pictures of the families and try to make it look welcoming.

This is a close-up of our Large Group circle area. The rug has the alphabet on it. One of the blue canvas things on the wall has the calendar and the other one has our daily schedule on it. The little school house will have velcro on it where the names of the children will go if they're in school today.

This shows our block area. The construction paper on the wall is the space for each child in the classroom to display their art. My class is black and red and the morning class is the black and purple. Each display has the child's name and their picture.

This shows the science area and the computer area. It also shows our quiet area (on the right). The quiet area is supposed to be really soft - like the physical manifestation of a hug. It's where the children can go if they're upset or having a difficult time.

And this is the teacher workspace. The AM, PM, and all-day classrooms share this.

So, that's just an introduction.

And now...I'm going to try to relax and get to bed. I'm still really nervous about class tomorrow. But it will be alright. It will just take time.

Oh! And Aunt Wanda made me a little hip apron to wear. It's going to be super helpful to carry all things around.

Maybe I'll get a picture of the apron sometime.

Tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow...

!!!!