curiousillusion

I wouldn’t say I’m a lazy teacher.  Far from it.  But there comes a time every year where I look at something that a fellow teacher is doing and it inspires me, kind of pushes me over the top.   Maybe it’s a method of teaching, maybe it’s a way of organizing the classroom… it comes, it goes.  Usually it goes because, well let’s face it – 23 kindergarten students is exhausting and there’s only so much extra effort (on top of what there already is to do) you can put into things before you get burned out.  So I’m waiting for this surge to pass.  But right now it is strong.

My current example: My co-teacher (sidebar: is she my co-teacher or just my co-worker?  We don’t teach together, but we teach the same grade level…) is very organized when it comes to certain parts of curriculum.  Namely: teaching the alphabet.  She has this massive file box and each letter of the alphabet has its’ own folder.  In it is everything from worksheets, craft ideas, and everything in between. She has poems and stories on sentence strips with corresponding pictures laminated and organized… I want it.  Short of just up and taking it from her, I want to make my own.

Okay I’m not going to the extreme.  I don’t want everything.  Plus all my worksheets are very organized on my flash drive, so I’m not about to print everything out.  But I thought about it and realized that I’m going to be a teacher for what, the next 40+ years of my life or so (oh my word.  *falls over*)?!   I’m bound to teach kindergarten again at some point.  This is my second year of teaching kindergarten and I don’t have much to show for it.  Centers, games, manipulatives, worksheets… yes.  But a pumpkin poem printed out on sentence strips with corresponding pictures, laminated for use year after year… no.  And that’s a shame.

So I spent a good chunk of last night (from 12am – 3am, when I should’ve been sleeping) thinking about all that I could do.  [Oh and PS if you have any resources you'd like to share with me, in any shape or form (like poems and/or books you know of and recommend, worksheets you can share, websites that rock your world, etc), for any grade level from pre-k to 2nd, please feel free to leave a comment... I'd appreciate it.]   I started looking up different things that I can start putting together, for use this year in the classroom and to save for future years.  I started making copies of some of the things that my co-teacher has that I really like, like the alphabet stories (one for each letter)… and since it’s a LOT of coloring, I’m going to start using the parents to help with them.  I’m going to laminate everything I used at the end of each month.  It’s going to be a lot of work.  (It’s also going to be a lot of stuff to store over the summers… but let’s not think on that right now)  But I figure, it’ll pay off.  I mean, once I’ve done the work, this is something I can use for years to come.  This time next year I won’t have to draw 8 pumpkins, one for each line of a poem.  It’ll be done already.

Or at least, that’s what I keep telling myself.  The reality is, next year I’ll probably find something else to obsess over. Something else I HAVE to do, which will end up being very time-consuming.  Next year maybe I’ll end up teaching a completely different grade level and there will be a brand new batch of materials to work with.  It’s never-ending.

But at least I’ll have my pumpkin poem.

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