It's go time

School begins again on Tuesday and I'm honestly a little excited. I'm not really ready to get up at 6am again, but I'm ready to teach. I miss all the kids a lot and getting back into the swing of things sounds fun. Aside from many meetings last week, I was able to get in and get my new classroom setup. I think it looks nice and the idea of not having 34 desks is amazing. I was actually able to set up multiple centers in the room without overcrowding the place. I think it's going to be a nice environment for the kids, even I'm looking forward to hanging out there everyday!

New classroom

Today was my first day back to school to begin setting up my new classroom. It was so refreshing to have a new slate to work with this year! Maybe I'm strange, but I really do enjoy setting up my classroom in the beginning of the year. It's the perfect time to start to put together a plan for the year. Since I'll be moving into a Special Education position this year, I've decided to lay my room out based on centers. I know I'll have students on varying ability levels, so I plan on studying units as a class and then differentiating their individual work. I feel centers will work great for this type of environment. It will allow some students to work on project below their frustration level independently, while allowing me to rotate to other centers to push higher level work. I honestly feel that planning this way will almost be easier than having all of students at similar levels. With the small number of students I'll have, I feel this strategy will be able to function effectively for everyone. All in all, I'm really looking forward to this year!