It must be interesting being the partner/spouse of a teacher. Mad love to my hubs! This week he was a HUGE help and took a day off of work to work (and I mean WORK) in my classroom.
He went to Walmart with me on the way in and we picked up a second shelf for my room. He built the shelf for me and then went to put together my new handy dandy drawer storage cart. In addition to this, he helped get the things stored on top of my cabinets down (I'm vertically challenged) and helped me drag things out of closets and cubbies to PURGE.
He supports me on my good days and bad days. And he totally gets my "issues." Admit it... as teachers, we're quirky folks. With his help on Wednesday, I was able to fill four trash cans and two recycling bins with stuff I no longer need. I was also able to start putting some SHIFTS (Thanks, Joy!) into place. There will be more photos eventually... I'm not done yet.
Shift # 1: I made the shelf he built me into my professional library but also a comfort station for my students. I need to take photos of my classroom when it is done, but I have two orange pots (our school colors are orange and black) for hard tack candy for my kids after they have read with me. The bottom shelf has bottled water as well. This probably sounds silly, but the more I thought about it, I want my kids to participate and to be engaged and sometimes not having dry mouth may help!
Shift #2: Husband put the tables together in a way I've never done before. We made a reading center to do a small group where the shelf and cart are.
Shift #3: Cabinets. As I noted before, I purged a lot of stuff. Seriously, I found a grammar book from 1987 with "Blackline masters" - it was time to go. I was able to take some dollar store tubs and fill them with supplies so kids are no longer digging in this big box of supplies we used to have in one of the cubbies.
Shift #4: Decor. I have no academic posters up as of right now. I do have an easel now and I plan on assembling that and using that for our poster/strategy or I'll be using one of my magnets and slapping that sucker to the board. I want my bulletin boards to be filled with student work and even student artwork because let's face it... mindfulness...and coloring...leads to my next Shift.
Shift #5: I've been reading a lot about mindfulness and the impact of STRESS on our bodies. On ANY body. Yes, even our students are stressed. I think it would be neat to be able to incorporate some sort of mindfulness activity each week. I'm going to be tinkering with this quite a bit this year.
I really appreciate my Husband's help. I'm excited to get my classroom set up (and yes, I'll post photos) and I'm optimistic about this school year. And remember when I said that we teacher folk have issues? One of my issues is I'm not the best with straight lines and crafts... hubby made this little sign to go with the mirror he hung up. All I had to do was laminate it and shalack it to the wall.
No comments:
Post a Comment