For most people the new year begins on January 1st, but for those in the education field the new year begins in August or September depending on where you live. I'm getting ready for the new year by shopping (we teachers get really excited when Target, The Dollar Tree, Wal Mart, Dollar General....stock their shelves with back to school items). In my last post I mentioned that I was reading Debbie Diller's book, Spaces and Places. I went to my classroom yesterday with several bags of school stuff and looked around. As a kindergarten teacher I have a lot of teaching materials. I looked around and immediately thought about my resolve to reduce. (I must have forgotten that resolve as I rushed around purchasing scissors, name tags, teacher note cards, pasta (yes, pasta, I dye tons every year for sorting, patterning and counting), crayons, sorting trays, a new big book easel, not to mention the many books I ordered this summer from Amazon.com.
As I looked around my classroom, I thought it a bit ironic that I'll be doing a workshop for new teachers in our county entitled, "Teaching Cheap."
So, Happy New Year to my profession. My resolution is to take Debbie's words of wisdom to heart. The only problem with resolutions is that they are easy to break. What will happen when I receive the Back to School issue from Scholastic Book Clubs? Can I resist the promise of several thousand bonus points? I'll keep you posted, any thoughts you have are welcome.
Linda
What I'm Reading
- Starting with Comprehension by Andie Cunningham
- Teaching with Intention by Debbie Miller
- Reading for Meaning by Debbie Miller
Blog Archive
About Me
- A Teacher's Touch
- Columbus, Georgia, United States
- Welcome to A Teacher's Touch, a blog for teachers and parents of young children. My name is Linda McCardle. I am a kindergarten teacher at Mathew's Elementary School in Columbus, Ga. I will be starting my twentieth year at Mathews this coming year. I am blessed to have had the opportunity to teach here with a wonderful faculty and a very special principal, Mrs. Dianne Sharpe. The parents at Mathews are incredible; they are supportive, generous and just the best! I have two wonderful children, a grandson and three grand daughters. My daughter Joy is a fellow teacher, so you can imagine what our conversations center around. I developed a web site www.lindaslearninglinks.com to share my philosophy and ideas concerning the teaching of young children. I am very interested in technology and wanted to share ideas that I use in my classroom with fellow teachers. I also wanted to have a way to communicate with fellow teachers and parents about the daily routines in my classroom and my other activities in the education field.
1 comments:
Yes, I know that feeling all too well. You have every intention of only buying the absolute necessities for your classroom but for some reason, everything seems like a necessity come July. I have recently decided to become super organized so guess what...yes, I'm BUYING things to help me be more organized. My husband said that if I keep buying things before I get the old stuff organized, I will never know exactly what I have and don't have. He is right. The other day I found a book (on sale) that I just HAD to have. I got home and decided to immediately orgainize it by putting it in the unit it went with. Have you guessed what happened? I opened the unit up to find the exact book inside. Oh I just hate it when he's right. I simply must go out and buy some clear rubbermaid boxes and get all my stuff organized!!!
Starla
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