Three WEEKS Down

Hey y'all!

I am flummoxed as to how three weeks have gone by already. It's crazy, isn't it, how it flies by? Here are some things I've learned so far.

1. Teaching is physically and emotionally exhausting. I'm on my feet all day, and in my bits of "free time", I'm going to the guidance counselor's office, to the main office, to the copy room, to team meetings...I barely have time to breathe. And my room has a lot of adults in it, which, for someone who needs her alone time to get her head in the game and sort through things, is very much a source of frustration.

2. Kids! They go crazy at the full moon. I have nothing further to add to that.

3. Other teachers will provide advice. Sometimes, you want the advice. Other times, it's less "advice" and more "condescending and unhelpful". I'm good about asking for help. Still figuring out how to kindly tell someone to stop with the commentary.

4. Math fundamentals are SO key. I've spoken to secondary teachers who work in math. They tell me their content is hard to teach. I bet it is. My kids struggle with basic math concepts, and if that backslide has started already, higher level math must be a beast.

Anyhow. I'm slowly finding my footing, and I still love what I do. It's just really, really hard.

xoxo

Miss Zee

Three Days In: Let's See...

Hey y'all!

Three days into teaching! Woo! It's...exhausting. My lower back is a mess of knots from standing, bending over small desks, or squatting to listen to a child read. I got my first spontaneous hug today, a child asked me a question I could not answer (birds...bees...you get the idea), and we spent a long time practicing going from carpet to tables and back again.

I know everyone said teaching was all about behavior management. To me, it's classroom management. I'm not a teacher - I'm a classroom manager. I manage time in a way that everyone gets to pee, eat food, move around, learn to handle petty arguments, get from Point A to Point B in one piece, and learn. Teaching in the purest sense is just a part of my job.

I'm trying to call parents to say hello, and start our relationships on a positive note. Five calls today, a few more tomorrow, and hopefully knock out the rest before our Back-to-School Night. Parental attendance is typically low, so I'd like to get a happy hook in so that they want to come to my classroom. I'm starting with the kids who I feel certain will be the recipients of less-positive calls later on, and it's amusing to hear the surprise in the parents' voices when I say "Nothing's wrong, just calling to say hello and how happy I am to have ___ in my class!". For some parents, I explicitly mention a great thing I've seen their kid doing - just to be sure they know that, despite reputations, their children have wonderful qualities, too.

How about you? What are you doing to reach out to parents?

xoxo
Miss Zee

First Day!

Hey y'all,

Did anyone else sleep oddly last night? I feel well-rested but I definitely woke up a few times, and I also was up before the sun, which is horrifying to a girl who still loves to sleep in till noon.

For many of us, today is the FIRST FREAKING DAY. I've spent the past week nesting in my room, having class lists change once, twice, three times, and planning like a crazy lady. I think I'm ready - my to-do list just has a few last-minute laminations, stapling one more thing, and taking a deep breath.

Also, figuring out where I can find a working projector cart, setting up the SMART board, and a few other things that are important...

Sigh.

Anyhow. I'm really excited to start school today, and I cannot wait to meet all of my kids. I'll be back with a much longer update later on - and y'all better let me know how your first days go!

xoxo
Miss Zee

Classroom Set-up, Revisited

Hey y'all!

I spent a long time over the weekend organizing my classroom - and discovering that the previous teacher (who retired, or moved to another school...I cannot recall which) left a load of supplies in the cabinets. I love her, it's safe to say. I put up the alphabet strips, laminated everything possible, and generally left feeling a bit less frazzled.

Here's a sketch of how my room looks. Let me know if you have suggestions, or just drop me a line regarding your own classroom set-up. Also - we will have two adults in the room the entire year, plus another for a month or so, therefore space is scarce.

xoxo

Miss Zee

Orientation Week Reflections

Hey y'all!

Last week we had district-wide new teacher orientation. Good grief, it was exhausting. Over one thousand of us met in a high school and dug into what it means to be a teacher in our district - learning about the focus for PD that the district has selected for the year, what goals have been set, and an overarching theme of "you guys totally got this". We also broke into much smaller groups to discuss the nitty-gritty details of being a teacher - behavior management, classroom set-up, ideas for building a community within the four walls we're assigned, and so on.

I really enjoyed learning a great deal about the district and meeting the women (and handful of men) who I'll be attending monthly seminar meetings with to support us in our first year of teaching. However, I'm not a big fan of crowds, and this was not only jam-packed, but hectic, and I ended each day feeling as if I had run a marathon.

We spent Friday at our own schools, and I don't know what everyone else did, but we had lots of meetings and get-to-know-you things. My school is one that is in need of a turn-around, at least when it comes to testing results, so there's a lot to do in terms of revamping and rehabilitating instructional practices. In some regards, I'm glad to be a new teacher here - it's all new to me, not a change from something old, just fancy and new. I'm a little more open to the ideas being sent our way, I think, and maybe that will help.

Stay tuned for a room set-up post tomorrow and a "what we did the week before school" post later on!

xoxo

Miss Zee

Ready (or...not) - Room Envy 101

Hey y'all!

Well, I've finished our first week of teacher orientation - focused on us newbies - and I am so tired that I cannot use words anymore. I am grateful for the weekend, I have to say. Tomorrow I'll do some work in the AM in my classroom with my co-teacher, and get some things up, and I'm hoping that having a second person in the room helps me visualize how it will all come together. Right now, I have a large box of a room with furniture and leftover things from a previous teacher (she retired, so I inherited an assortment of items). I have tables for the kids, a desk/small group table for me, a filing cabinet, some rolling carts, and the things for my co-teacher.

The problem is that a lot of my friends at other schools have their rooms set up and they look amazing. I tried yesterday to get started, with visions of Pinterest dancing in my head, and ended up leaving after 45 frustrating minutes trying to get my stapler to actually staple. And I couldn't use the laminating machine. And I used the wrong marker (sleep deprivation leads to not looking at things, apparently) on my job cards, so they all smudged. And I was basically in tears on the drive home, convinced that my room would be in shambles forever.

I know it won't be. I have ideas now, and I'm going to get some stuff done tomorrow. But it is hard to look at other teachers who are all set up and feel so, so behind. I want this room to reflect my philosophy of teaching - that an education is a powerful tool for building your future, and you should enjoy your education in order to get the most out of it. I want the room to be warm and welcoming, informative, busy but not overwhelming, a safe space for my kids to learn and take risks and grow and become stronger people. I want them to love the space, school, and me. And I have to remind myself to slow down, that my room will come together, and that it's more about what I do with them than what's on the walls that will help them achieve everything I hope for them.

Are any of my fellow new teachers feeling worried about this? Or feeling the bite of envy when it comes to room set-up?

xoxo

Miss Zee

A Quick Update

Hey y'all! I am in the midst of new teacher orientation and have MANY thoughts and takeaways. I'm focusing my energy on the work we are doing for now, and plan to write a long post over the weekend.

A few general things: the first weeks of school are SO important, and we are learning a lot of procedures to teach students. A lot of other new teachers are equally nervous, excited, and confused, which is good for my own sanity. And working for a big district means lots of rules we need to follow in terms of how we present ourselves to the world - social media, alcohol consumption (DO NOT DO IT IN SCHOOL SHIRTS), and bumper stickers...oh my.

xoxo

Miss Zee

Classroom Preview

Hi y'all!

I was out running errands today and emerged from a basement without service to find a missed text from a colleague I met the other week - our classroom assignments were FINALLY available - sent to us in a massive email about a week and a half after we expected to get them.

I still need to read over some of what my principal sent - I have been told (warned?) that she is a stickler for certain expectations in classroom set-up and management, but she did send a list of what she wants to see in our classrooms, as well as what to do in those crucial first weeks of school. So maybe it's structured and more so than others want - if she tells me to jump a certain height, I'm jumping, because she's not being vague, and I like that.

I got into my classroom this afternoon, dropping off a big bag of desk supplies and scoping out the space. Our school is huge, so I'm in the largest of several mobile classrooms. It's way nicer than the trailers my school as a kid used - bathrooms, a tech room, large classrooms, and a generally nice vibe. Plus the space is surrounded by gardens, so that's pretty lovely to see. I will be sharing my room with an ESOL teacher - we will probably collaborate on some things but for the most part, I think it's more that it's a shared space for planning and working with kids, and some of my kids will work with her. She'll also work with other third grade teachers, just call my room home base. I'm looking forward to meeting her.

Until I meet her, I don't want to do too much set-up (and I'm traveling this week, so...I can't anyway). I did a bit of grunt work today (and discovered some graffiti on some of the tables...charming), and got a feel for the room, and determined that the blinds are broken.

This is what the room looked like when I left - a few tables set up (I don't have a class list yet, and was honestly tired of lugging those things around, so I stopped after setting up four), my desk is over in the corner (it will also serve as a small group table), and I got a general idea of how much random stuff was left in the room that belongs to other teachers.

Here's my list of thoughts - I sat on a table and made notes for a while. I need a lot of things - a rug for whole group time, nametags for the hooks where kids can hang their bags and things, lots of things for a word wall, I want to figure out how on earth to lower the temperature...and so on.
















So! A lot to do, obviously, but I have a good sense of the space, and I can finally start to picture myself in that room, teaching.

xoxo
Miss Zee

Pre-Fall Stress Dreams

This morning I woke up with a start at 3:11 AM, convinced that I was...late for school. Or had forgotten something crucial.

It was unpleasant, to say the least. I'd been deep in a dream in which I showed up on the first day to find that my room was in shambles, I had a veteran co-teacher who loathed me and didn't want to help me at all, and I didn't know my class roster.

I know where this stress comes from, of course. I was expecting to hear two days ago from my principal about the beginning of school - and no such e-mail. I was also hoping that e-mail would include classroom assignments, and again - not a word.

I've been told not to buy anything for my classroom, and like I mentioned, I'm hesitant to get anything decorative until I know who I'm working with and if they're cool with owls. But I don't even know what our curriculum looks like, and I'm still waiting for a book that we're supposed to get on the behavior management system we use, and I just feel like perhaps I should have a lot more put together than I do - which is to say, I've got nothing. And my last few weeks of August are crazy, combined with supposed district requirements for room set-up...I'm anxious.

So, I have stress dreams. Here's what I'm going to do about them:

1. Email the school about classroom stuff - did that yesterday evening

2. Check out the website for the behavior management system and put together some loose ideas for the first week of school

3. Email one of the teachers I met to ask her opinion on what I should be doing right now.

4. Make a list of things I might want in my classroom - so that I can be ready to ask for them whenever that opportunity arises.

I can do this, right? Is anyone else feeling the anxiety?

xoxo
Miss Zee

Classroom Theme Ideas

I have been told by my principal not to buy anything - as she put it, I'm not getting paid this summer, and when I do get paid, it will be a teacher's salary. So I know that my school will help me out. As of right now, we're not sure where 3rd grade will be housed in our school, and so I don't have a clue what my room will look like. Or if I'm co-teaching or lead teaching on my own.

But! I really want to have some classroom set-up ideas in mind for when I get to get into my classroom later this month. So, with that in mind, I have been perusing some teacher supply websites. Oriental Trading is a well-known site, and a great resource for prizes and stickers and the like. I found Teacher Storehouse to have a ton of great classroom decorations, and so I've spent the past hour perusing their pages for ideas. I know I want a general theme in my room, and I also have the sage advice from my mentor teacher not to pick anything trendy - stick with a classic and you're guaranteed to be able to find a lot of great things every year. Here are the themes I'm floating around.

1. Stars. This is my front-runner so far. I like the idea of an all-black (or blue) door with stars on it (each star = a kid name). I could go the science route - "supernova of the week"- or the Hollywood route - "Star of the Week" with each kid getting a "star" on the sidewalk.

2. Owls. I am not a cutesy person, so ladybugs or frogs or monkeys seem too adorable for my taste, and also more early elementary. But I like owls, in real life, and I like the idea of owls as wise and inquisitive and observant creatures.

3. Helping hands. I found some lovely handprint patterns that I think I could work with. I also love the idea of a theme that speaks to my expectations in the classroom.

4. Classic. I could go with a few classic themes - apples are always solid, or classroom supplies (I found a pretty colored pencil border).

5. Abstract. Polka dots! Stripes! Puzzle pieces! (I actually love the puzzle pieces options out there)

I won't make a decision until I know whether or not I am working with a co-teacher. I want to pick something that has a lot of great ways to play with it, and that won't make me feel silly.

What do y'all think? Is there a theme that I obviously should go with?

xoxo
Miss Zee

Commuting to Work

I work in a district that is part of a large metropolitan area surrounding a major city - and I live in that major city. When my significant other were looking at places to live in this area (once it was determined that we could both find good jobs here), we considered living outside of the city - but hated every place we looked at. Since his job has an office in the city, and we found a place close to the major interstate that takes us out of the city, we decided to have one car, and I job-hunted in the districts in and around the city.

This means I will have a 25-30 minute commute to my school. Luckily, as with many cities, most people will be coming into the city in the morning as I'm leaving, and driving out as I drive in. I've talked to a woman who works at a school in my school's neighborhood and also lives in the city, and she says it is the smoothest commute she's ever dealt with.

During student teaching, I lived near my university and worked at an elementary school about 20 minutes away. I got used to having that commute time to decompress and unwind after rough days. My first week there, before the kids arrived, my mentor and I went through every student's cumulative folder (I'm curious to see if my district now uses these folders to track student progress throughout their education in that district...they were useful!). By the end of the day, we knew that Student A had been living with various guardians since age 2, and her mother would be coming home after 6 years - and that this student's report cards were littered with concern about her emotional stability. Student B's file was so thick it took two hands to lift, and we had to call in her 1st grade teacher to discuss the legal ramifications of the contents. Student C had moved from school to school since kindergarten, Student D was new and his IEP was lost in transit. And on and on. I got into my car and burst into tears. There was just so much to handle in these kids' lives - how could I ever learn to handle it on my own so that I could be a stable force for them?

I learned to handle it. I'm not all the way there - I will probably still cry for the things that kids go through, and be angry at the adults in their lives, and worry constantly about how they're doing. But I did learn to compartmentalize the stress of it, and a big piece of that skill comes from having time to myself at the end of the day. Yes, I'll talk to my boyfriend when I get home about my day, but there are some things that I may need time to process - and talking to myself, or calling my dad (a former teacher) or one of my best friends (many of whom are teachers) to vent about teacher-specific things will be really useful.

That being said - I'm off to the administrative center today to sign my contract! Where is everyone else in the hiring process? What stresses do you anticipate in your classroom? How do you plan to handle them?

xoxo
Miss Zee

Hello, world!

Evening, y'all!

Welcome to my corner of the internet, where I plan to write as much as I can over the next school year about the ups, downs, and in-betweens of my first year of teaching.

You can learn a bit about me in the 'About Me" page up top, but to give you a quick summary: I just earned my Master of Teaching in Elementary Education from a school on the East Coast, and am going to be teaching third grade in a large school district on the same coast. I'm writing this blog under a pseudonym in order to keep my personal and professional lives separate, but everything I write here will be as true to my experience as I can keep it (no student, parent, teacher, principal, or school names will be used, though, because that's not cool in my book).

My hope for this blog is to serve a couple of purposes. First, I love to write, and while I will certainly write in a journal about teaching (thoughts for myself, you know?), I also want to carve out a space online to share with others going through the same year. Second, I want to be super-clear: this is not a crafty blog. I was born without the Creative/DIY Gene, and that's just how it is. If you are looking for blogs on how to create a gorgeous bulletin board, 79 Things to Do With Carpet Squares, or free downloads of well-drawn flipbooks on the life cycle of amphibians, I am not your girl. But you should share those blogs with me, since I need ideas. I want to write about the things that happen in my first year that teach me lessons - if a lesson backfires horribly, I want to focus on what that can teach me. If the lesson goes fabulously, same deal. One of the things my mentor in student teaching told me was that every day holds valuable lessons for a teacher - at any point in her (or his) career. With that wisdom in mind, I want to approach this year reflectively - and hopefully use that reflection to prevent myself from feeling like a colossal failure (because, let's be honest, there will be days and weeks where it all goes awry and I do a lot of panicking).

Right now, I'm about a month out from starting school - the kids come back after Labor Day. Next week, I'm going in to sign my contract (I need to use a PC for that and I only have a Mac and really, I feel like perhaps there is some grant waiting to be written to make school tech compatible with all computers), then I have a day-long PD event at my school. I am not sure what the PD is focusing on, but I know it matters to my principal (after all, she specifically arranged for it) - and really, I'm desperate to meet people! I know there will be a lot of new teachers at this school, and I'd love to meet them. And I want to get a feel for the veteran teachers - and perhaps find someone who will be a good shoulder to lean on from time to time. At the moment, there are a lot of unknowns (I'll write about them later), and I'm trying to remember that the unknowns aren't bad - they're just out of my control at the moment, and that's okay.

Before I sign off - I want to encourage y'all to make your voices known - comment, sign up for posts via email (little box off to the right), follow me on Bloglovin' (icon coming soon), and give me feedback. If you're a newbie like me, say hi - and if you're in your 30th year of teaching and have advice, OMG please say hi.

In short: let's do this.

xoxo
Miss Zee