Sunday, November 18, 2012

Change of Grade Level

I was told on Friday what grade I'll be teaching next year and boy and I am terrified! I woke up last night in the middle of the night just thinking of how **hard** it's going to be and whether or not I'll be any good for the kids. 

I was also thinking of the teeny, tiny classrooms the grade level is in and the weirdness of them! I guess you've never heard classrooms called 'weird' before but they really are! One wall is on a diagonal in all the rooms, there is a little 1m x 1.5m little hallway type thing at the front of the room (what to put in that????). There is only one small bulletin board and NO wall space! 2 walls are glass sliding doors and windows from almost the roof to floor, one has the interactive whiteboard/1 small whiteboard/and the little hallway and the last side has one of those opening/closing concertina doors (that doesn't close all the way mind you so I'll be able to hear the noise of the class next door and vice versa). There is an office for the teacher - but that is a box that comes into the classroom space  and you guessed it, has glass windows from the top to halfway to the floor for the teacher to see out. We do have a kitchen to share between the two classes and a storage room! Yippee, I'm very excited about that! I haven't had one since my first year teaching. 

I know some of my Aussie friends are probably thinking it doesn't sound too bad. I remember some of the older classrooms I was in during my uni pracs and none of them had kitchens or storerooms. I guess because our school is new (only about 6 or so years old now) I've been a little spoiled! But the thought of setting up this weird shaped classroom is daunting! It's also much smaller than my demountable (portable) so I'm not sure if my things will even fit in when desks take up pretty much all the space!

Oh, by the way, I'm going to First! Term 1 of Grade 2 is always soooo very hard for me but continues to get better as the year progresses and as the kids mature a bit. The thought of those kids being a year younger is making me have palpitations! We have a step-up day in a few weeks (so the preps/kinders) will come up to their Grade 1 teacher. I guess I'll see what I'm in for then!

I'm on the lookout for Grade 1 blogs and great TpT products so I can start to get ready over our Summer holidays. Any suggestions (your own or ones you have used)?