Extreme Classroom Makeover!

Here is the shell of a classroom I was given. It was pretty much stripped bare.

Here is the BEFORE:

AND THE AFTER:

Not a bad start after 3 days of pulling together donations from family, friends, and the internet. I highly recommend joining a Freecycle group to anyone who has limited funds and wants gently used items.

Back To School Fever

It's August and I'm excited to start a new school year. I'll be getting a new set students (two year olds) starting September 8th. I started clearing out my classroom this week to make way for the new kids. And I do love a good end of the year cleaning. Back to school shopping also gets me in a good mood when I come across great deals. I just love the smell of a fresh new box of Crayola crayons!




While going through my closet and looking for lesson materials to start my planning, I found this wonderful photo!

It's my first day of PreKindergarten! Sept 1984. I'm all dressed up for school in my baby blue sweater. Books, games, lunch and naps - best way to spend a day back then and still is.

Carlos Tapia Elementary School P.S. 120. Bushwick, Brooklyn NYC.

August means 3 weeks of classes and 2 weeks training!

This year, my center has decided to take no breaks. We'll have children continuing to attend for the first 3 weeks of August and we'll spend the last 2 weeks in training and preparing our classrooms for the new school year. I've been home this week thinking of new hands on circle time activities to engage the new set of students we'll be getting. The class will be much larger and the majority of the students will be special needs children.

A wonderful resource that I've been using is a book called Early Intervention Games by Barbara Sher. She clearly lays out all the games with instructions and material listings with their intended goals and outcomes so you can pinpoint exactly what skills you want to work on with your student.