The beginning of a new school year is always hectic. Add beginning of a new school district on top of that and it becomes doubly hectic. September is always a fresh start. New students, new pencils, new clothes, new behaviors, new everything. It is always exciting. I always find myself losing sleep with nerves and excitement prior to the first days of school. I always want everything to be perfect for the beginning of the school year.
School years always start with meetings, reviewing procedures of the school and introducing new ones. This year mine started with New Hire Orientation. Thankfully, I was able to start working during Extended School Year in July- August for six weeks. This was a great transition to meet some of my new co-workers, get to know some of my students, learning how to get around the building, some of the program, start unpacking materials, familiarizing myself with what was in the classroom already, organizing, and setting up the classroom with how I want it to be set up. This is always a tough process, especially when taking over an already established classroom. I'm so happy I was able to transition over the summer. If I didn't, I would have been so lost come September and beyond overwhelmed. Instead, I was able to start September slightly overwhelmed. After six years of teaching, I feel like a first year teacher already. I'm trying to set up materials for the program they use, VBMAPP. As I am learning the program, I think it is really good. In order to work on generalization, I need to create extra materials to go with each section. This took over a lot of my time in September. With a new classroom and new students in a special education classroom, there are always different abilities to plan for. I have several students that have very limited language or are non-verbal. I had visuals in my old Preschool Disabled (PSD) classroom, but some do not work with this program. Now I need to create new visuals or materials to assist in my classroom. All of this is very time consuming. I became a bit of a workaholic during September trying to set up everything for this new classroom. Some visuals I set up- home & school sign in board, chart for "picking a song", visuals for some songs (free printables here- wheels on the bus, Itsy Bitsy Spider & Bear Hunt), visual to go along with shirt song for circle, time, class visual schedule, weather bear and items to go along with our weather activity, visual necklaces(freebie link) for myself, speech teacher and the paraprofessionals in my class and visuals for work schedules. Although it has been extremely hectic during September, it has been a very rewarding month. The class is great and the school has been very welcoming. I am very happy to be in this new position. I am starting to get into a rhythm and I am setting some new goals for the upcoming months. October my goal is to try to find a little more balance with my work/home life. Upcoming soon, I will be sharing some of the activities we have been doing for Septembers Apple theme, Five Senses and Fall themes. Thanks for reading! Ms. Pre-K
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AuthorMy name is Ms. Pre- K. I am new to blogging but not new to the education world. I will be going into my sixth year of teaching special education this September. Archives
March 2017
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