Preparing for a New Batch of Preschoolers

As the first day of school quickly nears, I  find myself preparting for a new batch of preschoolers.

This Friday I will receive my class list, so I can then start doing all the things one does to get ready for them:  address and send their "Meet the Teacher" invitation postcards, write their names on their cubby labels, fill in this year's birthday chart, etc.

At the same time, I need to clear out some of the old spaces to make room for these new Little People.  For example, just yesterday I sat looking at all of the picture files from the last school year on my computer, wondering if it was time to send last year's Little People memories off to clear space for the new ones.

Naturally, my hesitation in this is in more than clearing computer memory.  Those Little People from last year were so - together.  They knew the routines and the Ins and Outs of our days at preschool.  They had developed into Little People who had learned (for the most part) that yes, their caregivers were going to return at the end of the day.  They had learned (again, for the most part) to use their words with each other, and had developed fair amounts of self control as they went about their preschool days.

Of course, with the exception of our one repeat student, this new batch of kids will most likely not be together at all.  They will be clueless and nervous, and so, so young.  Then there's the Unknown concerning this new batch - will they be Screamers? Criers?  Biters?

It's all so -  unknown.

What I do know, however, is that it never fails to amaze me to see how far each batch of Little People comes during the months of a preschool year.  Which means that whatever state they will come to me in on August 20th, their potential is huge - and even the state that they arrive in will be in some form precious. (If we keep with the "batch" metaphor, they're still cookies after all - no matter what flavor they turn out to be, they're still good.)

So let them come - I am ready.

Zoo Animal Flashcard Banner

Here is another flashcard banner that I just put on the teacher store shelves:

It's made up of recycled zoo animal flashcards, with fun colorful buttons in between each card.

The entire banner is 7 feet long.

You can find it here for only $10.

Flashcard Banners for Classroom Decoration

Let the classroom decorating begin!!

Well, actually, let them begin next week, when I get my keys to my classroom back.  For now, though I am getting ready.

One type of classroom decorations that I have been working on this summer are flashcard banners.  I first started planning and making these when I was writing my tutorial "How to Decorate a Classroom Tree".  Even though I had a classroom tree in mind when I wrote this, the truth is that this e-book is full of fun classroom decorations for your students (and you to make).  

 One section is entitled "Flashcard Garlands", and I talk about how to turn old flashcards into fun classroom decorations:

I have made several variations of these garlands, and they are all going on the shelves of my teacher stores in the next few days.  

The Alphabet Flashcard Banner is one of my favorites, just because it is made of some older alphabet flashcards, along with some up-cycled wooden beads:

 This banner is 21 feet long.  The cards are strung on 1/4" red satin ribbon, with an assortment of wooden beads between each card.

You can find this banner for sale for only $12.00 (plus $3 shipping) here or here.

Book Sale at the Library

You've got to love spontaneous, "we're getting ready of these" book sales at the library.  Especially when the hardback book are only 25 cents each.  Granted, it stands to reason if the library is giving books away, they are probably going to be worn or perhaps a little strange.

Regardless, I managed to find five good ones today that I brought home with me:

I will soon take off those crinkly plastic library covers that seem to befuddle the Little People and then put them with the other books that will go off to school soon.  

But before that I will label them with the proper Unit Number.  See, I've already virtually labeled them below:

The Giant Jam Sandwich gets a "120" for Food.
Black Dog Gets Dressed and Rrralph get "055" for Pets.
Round Trip gets an "075" for Day/Night.
Last but not least, The Red Book will most likely not get a label, but will instead go in with my Caldecott book collection.

Not bad for $1.25!

Buying, Gathering and Scavenging: The Collection Has Begun of Materials for Back to School

Well, the collection has begun.  While I might have perhaps gone a month this summer without collecting/buying/scavenging anything for preschool, that lull is now over.  At this point I'm keeping my eyes open at all times to see what's out there that my new incoming set of Little People can use.

Here are some of the things I've found in the past few weeks:

In the "Buy" category: While in Texas last week visiting my parents, my mom took me to the Lakeshore store in Austin.  Now that is a fun place.  Among the hundreds of fun things I wanted to bring home, I found these new bulletin board borders and a few other fun things.  I'm especially excited about the "Peel and Stick" magnet dots - no more cutting little pieces from magnet rolls.  Well, at least until these run out.

Also in the "Buy" category are these containers from the Dollar Tree.  I am working on collecting sets of various items for free sorting and counting for each theme we learn about, and I'm wondering if these containers might be a good size for those.  I like that they close well, and are smaller than the plastic shoe boxes that would most likely be too big.

In the "Gather" category are these plastic containers that my mom has been saving for me from some pre-made meals that she and my dad sometimes buy.  Despite the fact that I had brought a fairly small suitcase, these had to fly back to California with me. (Thanks, Mom).

These cardboard tubes fall into the "Scavenge" category.  What's the difference between the "Scavenge" and the "Gather" category, you ask?  Well, in my mind the "Scavenge" category are things that I would gladly pull out of the trash.  Which I did in this case.  These tubes came with some glow sticks that we used this summer at church camp.  We were opening about 50 of these packages to prepare for our "glow stick fireworks".  (Which is when you shoot hundreds of glow sticks into the air out of some sore of hydraulic "potato launcher" to create a spectacular rainfall of color for the happy campers.)  When I saw the tubes, I exclaimed, "Oooh, I need these for preschool," and went into the trashcan for those that had been already thrown away.  I don't know what we will do with them, but I'm sure we'll think of something.  

And so the Back to School Collection continues.  Because Back to School is getting very, very close.

Day #4 of "The Keeping of the Stuff" - Using a Camera to Stay Organized

Well, here I am (finally) to talk about another way to help keep your Teaching Stuff organized. So far I've talked about my Theme Unit Numbering System and my unit boxes.  However,  even with all that stuff fairly organized, there are other items that I have that I find troublesome to keep together.   Even worse, sometimes I find that even if I can keep them together, I sometimes go months before realizing that I'm not really utilizing any of them because they are "out of sight, out of mind".  Basically I forget that I even have them.

Because I think that it's a shame to have so many good resources and not utilize them, I have learned to use my digital camera to keep these teaching items more "in sight" and thus in better use.  Whether it be my actually "real" camera or the camera on my phone, I find that this can be an excellent tool to help a)organize my things, and b)utilize them the best way.

The primary way I use my camera is to help keep track of items that I have.  For example, I have several large clear plastic containers of general-themed teaching items.  One is filled with games and activities that deal with "Numbers and Counting", one is "Shapes and Colors", and one is "Alphabet".  Since these are things that can not really be filed in the number filing system, they live in their own container in the garage, and sometimes are forgotten.  Therefore, this summer I took pictures off all of these items.  Here are a few examples:

I then can paste these pictures onto a document using any word processing software and print it out:

I then file them in my planning notebook that I refer to when I am making lesson plans (more about that on another day).

If I have an item that I want to go with a specific unit or in a lesson plan, I can paste that picture directly into the lesson plan where it would be used, since I plan my lesson plans on my computer.  I can also insert the pictures into a document that I call "Items Available for (insert theme here)."  This is what I do most often with my big books.  Although I have a list of them in database that I can search by theme or unit number, sometimes I don't remember the actual book until I see the cover.  (This is especially true for preschool books, when you might have three or four books titled "Bugs", or "Apples".) Therefore, I will paste the pictures onto a page like this:

This is especially helpful if you have a big book with different charts or themes on each page.  For example, on the page above you can see an "Insects" poster on the bottom left corner.  This is one page of a book that has a different theme on each page, and I always forget I have it because a)it lives in the garage in a big container and b)it doesn't get filed in the "053/Insect section".  To solve this, I took a picture of each page of the book (it has about ten pages) and inserted each picture on a document listing materials with that theme.   If I needed to, I could type in that this chart was in such-and-such book to help me remember where it is.

By using my camera in this way, it helps me keep my teaching objects close to mind and well-utilized.

Day #3: My Themed Unit Boxes

In my last post I talked about the Unit Theme Numbering System that I inherited from my mother, and how much it helps me keep my teaching materials organized.  I file all of my papers and books with this system.

However, I have a number of teaching items that I do not file with the number system.  These are my larger items, such as all the puzzles, things to sort, props, etc. from each theme.  These I put into my Theme Unit Boxes.

My favorite type of boxes are the clear, plastic boxes that can actually hold hanging files.  However, they tend to be a little expensive.  A few Christmases ago when they were on sale I used some gift money to buy about 20 of them.  However, I always seem to be gaining stuff, so I quickly fall back on cardboard boxes for all of the overflow.

Here the clear plastic boxes are, all stacked up and ready to go in my garage:

As I mentioned above, I usually find myself accumulating more stuff than will go in one of these boxes.  So while I am waiting to buy more plastic boxes (or until I sort out enough stuff to make everything fit together in one box), I will put extra themed items in cardboard boxes.  While doing this, I find that these are two of my favorite tools: Post it label tape and a Sharpie.

Here are the tape labels in action:

What I most often do when I find that I need another box is to make the cardboard box a temporary one.  I add a label with the post-it tape, and then add a second label that tells me that this cardboard box is one of two boxes that I have for this theme (in this case, one of two farm boxes).

I then stick another label on the original theme box to remind myself that I have two farm boxes now:

If later I decide that I really am going to keep two or more boxes from one theme, I add the "1 of 2" or "2 of 2" markings to the actually "fancy" theme label, as shown here:

The theme labels are ones that I made  on the computer.  After I made this first set (shown in the photographs), I later went back and re-designed them. The redesigned ones I now sell in my teacher stores.  Here's how they look:

You can purchase these labels here and here, for only $2 for all 29 labels. 

Those are my unit boxes, which help me keep my bigger teaching items in order.