Revamping the classroom

Part of me feels bad because once again I'm going to be sending the parents of my students a new class schedule, and information explaining how I am changing up what I am doing in my classroom.  These parents have experienced so much change in the past month that it is kind of annoying.  Some kids were placed in one class, then moved to mine, then they had to adjust to how I was, then last Monday I made a new schedule to fit what we were really doing.

Well on Tuesday afternoon I was surprised and found out that on Wednesday and Thursday I would be going to training to learn the "Best Practices in Pre-K".  So I quickly made sub plans and with another teacher we headed up to Huntsville.

 The first day of the training was horrible.  Don't get me wrong, the presentations were wonderful, we played a ton of new games, and we were given a lot of materials.  What was horrible was the feeling in my stomach when I learned how much I needed to add to my classroom and change.  While my school told me that I was doing great, I suddenly felt like a failure.  Why didn't I know to teach this way? Why wasn't I up to date on this? Why didn't I remember that from school?  My coworker and I felt like we sucked as teachers.  We needed to change our classrooms around and fast.

On the second day of training we actually pumped ourselves up first by saying that we were going to go in there positive, upbeat, and not dwell on what we were doing wrong, but focus on what we could do to improve.  Well it turns out that all of the things discussed on day two we were actually doing.  So now we knew we were not in a huge hole, but just needed to improve our classroom by half.  We can do this.

So tonight I created the items for a letter wall, figured out a new layout for my classroom so that I can incorporate centers, spray painted some furniture that was passed on to me, and bought some new furniture from ikea.   Tomorrow I'm heading up to my classroom to put all of the new furniture in, rearrange some things, and set up my centers the best way that I can.  I'll also take pictures while I'm at it.

I also no longer have that "I suck as a teacher" feeling.  I really needed that training because really I've never know what or how to teach 3 year olds in a way that is effective.  Better to find out at the start of the year rather than the end of the year. :)