I’m teaching Kindergarten next year!  Woohoo!

Just a recap of my last six months (in a nutshell)…

1.  My husband is a principal and his Kindergarten teacher resigned in January.

2.  I ended up taking over for the rest of the year as the long term sub.

3.  I decided that I wanted to stay and applied for the Kindergarten position.

4.  I went through a long interview process.

5.  I got the job! (By the way, in case you are wondering, my husband was not part of the interview committee.)

If you are new to Schoolgirl Style, I wrote a post about taking the Kindergarten position and the details leading up to it.  If you don’t know the story, you can read about it HERE:

CLICK here to read post!

When I took the position in February, I had one weekend to pull this classroom together…that’s it.   It was one of my biggest challenges yet!  I actually think I did a nice job creating a welcoming environment for my students, however, I struggled with the organizational end of it.  I didn’t have time to make sure the classroom functioned properly.  If someone doesn’t understand the concept behind Schoolgirl Style, this was the perfect example of why teachers need to care about their learning environment!  The classroom setup is the THE most important part of teaching.  You can’t teach without an organized and functional space!  This was something I just couldn’t accomplish in my short weekend.  UGH.  It was hard.

 I was dying to make changes, however,  I was consumed with the curriculum and didn’t have the time to go back and tweek the areas that drove me crazy.  This was the hardest part about taking this position in the middle of the school year.   I have never worked so hard in my life…I had so much to cover in such a short amount of time.   Taking this position meant that everything else in my life was on the backburner (especially my new house…we abandoned all projects and decorating for months…and even the laundry!  haha!).

Here is the AFTER picture of my 2-day decorating frenzy!  It was the best I could do, folks!

After I took the position, every weekend was spent planning for the upcoming week.  I would gather the family and we would all hang out at school in order for me to prepare for the week ahead.  Luckily, my girls LOVED doing that.  Having the classroom to themselves was like a dream come true!  They played school for hours and believe it or not, they had the time of their lives!  My hubby was busy in the office working on school stuff, while I kept busy in my new classroom.  We were able to get our work done AND be together at the same time.  It was our very unconventional “family time,” but it worked for us.

 Despite some of the minor sacrifices that I made in order to take the position, I could see that this job really fit into my life well.  I was with my family every single day…that alone was PRICELESS!  The Schoolgirl Style Shop was right down the street from the school.  If my employees at the shop needed me for anything, I could stop by and answer questions on my lunch hour.  My employees were also known to drop off a Diet Coke at school for me every now and then, which was AWESOME!  Thank you, girls!   I even had the most super, fantastic aide in my classroom that made my job a lot easier and so much fun!

 I felt so lucky to be in that position and knew that I couldn’t give it up.

To be completely honest though, I think everyone around me thought I was nuts.  I know that some people couldn’t understand why I would wanted to go back to teaching.  Why would I add another stress to my life?   I know that some of you were even concerned that I would abandon Schoolgirl Style if I made the decision to go back.  Truth is,  I want to continue Schoolgirl Style and have crazy dreams of making it bigger and better!!!  There has never been a doubt in my mind that I couldn’t do BOTH jobs.  I love to teach as much as I love Schoolgirl Style!  I think I knew in the beginning that I wanted to stay.  I had felt that pull to go back from the moment I left teaching.

Needless to say, I am ecstatic about my new position and can’t wait to get started!  I plan to spend the summer working on my new room(s)!  There is no way that I can function in that classroom like I did this last year.  I am on a mission to make it organized, functional, and an amazing learning environment for my new, sweet Kindergarten students!

Here are more pictures of my classroom.  You can see the space better from the different angles…

I plan to paint the blue wall a neutral white, change some bulletin boards around to make it more functional for my students, cover the long shelves with some pretty fabric, and give the entire room a complete makeover.

The SECOND classroom!

If you follow me on Facebook and Instagram, I recently showed you a picture of my SECOND classroom.  That’s right…I have TWO rooms!  Yes, I know I’m pretty lucky.  Before me, it was a “catch all” room.  It was filled with hand-me-down toys and the closets were filled with items that looked like it had been there from the 1960’s.  It was too big of a job for me !o tackle this winter, so I knew that once the children left for the summer, I had to clear out that space!  It has great bones and AMAZING windows! Here is what it looks like…

*WARNING…it is NOT pretty.

I spent an entire week cleaning out this room!  I removed the brown contact paper off the chalkboard (I plan to paint it black with chalk paint), I cleaned out the art cupboard and cleaned off the sink area (I don’t EVEN want to tell you what I found in the heaping pile of junk on the counter.  Just know…it was gross.  VERY gross).  I cleaned out the closets and organized all of the materials.  Then, I hauled out all of the junk.

Here’s the hallway….

Several nice people came and picked it all up, then we sold it at our church rummage sale.  All of the proceeds went back to the school.

I really want this room to be developmentally appropriate for my students.  I don’t want “toys” in the room, instead I would like to see it become more purposeful and educational.  I want to create an environment that includes every area a young child needs to thrive.  I plan to create an amazing Dramatic Play area, as well as the follwing Centers:  Math, Science, Listening, Reading, Art, Block/Building, and an ABC Center.

I have a HUGE job ahead of me…YIKES!

Stay tuned…lots of fun stuff planned for these two spaces!  I will be sure to let you know when they are finished!