Ready?

Over the last few days I've had the opportunity to help Ms. Lee* set up her room as well as to meet many other teachers, see their rooms, and the general state of play before the students arrive at PSOhYes next Thursday.

First of all, it brought back great memories of helping my mom set up her classrooms when I was a kid, which I had completely forgotten. That was nice. Like the year I designed a "monster" (like a muppet character) with the name of a classical musician for each subject ("Wolfgang" was math) and made an elaborate set of labels, etc., for her third grade. She used those for years.

Anyway. Ms. Lee is experienced, and she's moving with her students to a new grade, so some niggling stuff (name tags) was mostly done but others that you wouldn't need to worry about teaching the same grade (library) needed attention. Her room was not "done." But I spent an hour making a hand-lettered "welcome" sign with everyone's name on it. Great to get back to my art-school roots!

One of the other teachers is a "rainbow geek" (self-described). Her curtains were tie-dyed rainbow spirals and all her folders and bins made rainbows all over the room. It was GREAT. That, I thought, is going to be me. I aspire to rainbow geekdom.

But on to more important matters. Ms. Lee is getting an ELMO classroom projector for the first time ever! I am going to look into ways you can use it. It's not that hard, but new equipment just days before school starts is a big challenge when you have other, new-grade-level stuff to do. This will be my project for Wednesday, setting it up; I hope Ms. Lee brings her laptop. She is getting it because the mini-school teachers are getting all new equipment. She is not getting her printer replaced, which is stressing her out because she relies on it being right in the classroom. This will be an adjustment, I can see. I hope to help her with the transition. This may mean I am running upstairs to get stuff she is printing while class is going on!

So all of this means the IT staff is completely overwhelmed. The laminating machine was out of commission both days I was there (major problem for making signs and labels) and one copier was down. There's no way they'll have time to come in and set up the ELMO. And... it's waiting for shared resources like this that can really slow down the prep process.

That said, it leaves more time for leisurely lunches, hearing about each other's vacations and catching up on news. One of our students' baby siblings is very ill and may not survive. That will be an issue for this child, and something we need to prepare for. I don't envy Ms. Lee in responding to the email she got from the child's parents about this.

I am really looking forward to meeting the students, but trying to catch up on rest before next week- my daughter is starting at a new school as well, so we're all bound to be exhausted by the end of the week!

*Not her real name