First Days

Many people believe that teachers are in the profession for three things: June, July, and August. That period of time where all of our responsibilities, duties, and work is non-existent. What they don't realize is that the work of art of teaching never stops. There is never a moment that a teacher is not thinking about, looking for, or working towards bettering their classroom.

While there is a "first day" back for teachers and a "first day of school" there are no first days. Teaching is a continuous process of learning and working. If a teacher waited till the "first day back" to prepare their classroom for the upcoming year, essentially the teacher would be setting themselves up for failure. With all of the meetings, home visits, and conferences and professional development that is crammed into those few days, there is a very limited, if any, time left for the teacher to actually work in their room and prepare their classroom for the upcoming students.

I was able to spend eight days helping to prepare the classroom. Out of those eight days, there was only one day that was completely uninterrupted and devoted to only preparing the room. Multi-tasking quickly becomes a teacher's strength. During these eight days, we spent time completing all the paper work for the children, updating the STEPS preschool online documentation site, printing pictures and label, labeling the room, and making everything personalized for this year's group. So of my own personal tasks that I completed in this time for the classroom include:

A birthday chart                                      

 

  A Velcro sign-up Chart

   

And a new behavior management class chart

Pocket charts can be very expensive, so I made my own "pocket chart" using business card holders that are a lot like page protectors, I just cut them in half to make the rows of five, a poster board, and tape. It was very easy and very cheap - two of a teacher's favorite things!


Getting a classroom ready, is not an easy task. It is a monumental, on-going, task that at times seems endless, makes the teaches want to pull their hair out all the while they promise themselves that when given the time they will become organized - that next year it will be easier, if they had the time. IF they had the time.

But it's okay - because as soon as the students walk in that door on that first day, all that hard work, all that tiring work, all that stressful paperwork, all those negative thoughts go out the window. All that work that went into getting the classroom ready no longer seems monumental, because, it is when you have 18 smiling faces, 18 eager and curious minds, 18 morning hugs that you realize it was all worth it. And in that moment, you wish you could have done more for these students, after all, they deserve the best and only the best.