Reflecting on the first full week of school

Wow, I survived! I'm tired, and have been working 11-12 hour days, but I'm starting to feel like I might be able to get back into my study this weekend. After a short week last week, the five days this week felt a bit like a marathon, but it was pretty good. This morning, as I got a bit grumpy and short with my students first thing this morning, I knew I was tired. Thankfully I managed to get control of my mood and we ended up having a pretty good day, although those students who totally missed Fun Friday because they didn't do their homework probably didn't think so.

For the most part the week went well. Tuesday did not go at all to plan. When setting up my computer ready for the maths lesson I had planned, it kept telling me that my PowerPoint software was unlicensed, and throwing me out of the program. I tried doing a system restore, and that didn't work so I ended up having to refresh the system, which basically uninstalled everything back to a bare basic Windows set up. That meant I had to reinstall everything, including Microsoft Office and Adobe Reader. I got Adobe Reader installed, but couldn't get the computer to talk to the projector. One of the ICT teachers came down in the afternoon and tried to help, but he couldn't solve it either. Eventually I got onto the Acer website and downloaded the driver for the VGA card, and happily that solved the problem. I've still got some software that needs to be reinstalled, but at least the computer is functional again. It was a frustrating day, as I use the computer and projector for almost every Mathematics and English lesson, but I did  get through the day. I thank God that He has helped me to become more flexible, and that enabled me to adapt to the unforeseen challenges.

Once again, I was reminded that I need to show as well as tell the children exactly what they have to do, especially with things that I want done in a particular way. The prime example was homework. A few students got it from my "telling" but quite a few didn't. When I used the work of one of the students who did get it to show those who didn't get it what was required I got much better results. Part of the problem was that the document camera which I usually use for "showing" has developed a crack in one of the joints, and won't stay in position. I'm hopeful I can get a replacement for it, but also will be looking to see how I can repair/modify it so it is usable.

One thing I did manage to achieve this week was take some photos of the classroom on Monday afternoon, so you can see it now it's getting closer to being completely set up. I'd still love at least one more power outlet, preferably behind my desk, but for the time being I'm managing.

Classroom library, CAFE menu board, posters starting to go up, and storage.

This could still be a bit tidier, but most of my good boxes are now hidden away.

I love having space to walk around the mats.
With only 20 students there's one mat each, and if I get more students then there's room to add more mats!
I project onto the whiteboard, lowering the blind over the window darkens the room just enough.

I made a couple of adjustments to this area, moving my desk and turning the small shelf around,
and now it's working really well.

This is the other end of the classroom. My special needs student likes using the table in the corner, which I was going to use for the student computer, so I may need to come up with another plan for that, but at the moment it's working well. The noodles are for swimming lessons, and live in my room or they would quickly become damaged and unusable.

Weekly homework, daily timetable, and a small area for teaching above student storage.
We use the folders when I'm testing students to discourage copying.
The last five years has seen slow growth in my collection of games and puzzles to the good collection you see here.

The rest of the student storage areas, trays for books and work to be handed in,
classroom rules and management system, and the classroom jobs display.

This was one of my treats to myself this summer. These are fairly cheap in the USA but in Australia they are pretty expensive, so I make selections carefully. This year I bought this set for class jobs, and a matching set for birthdays, which I'll put up in the next week or two, once I get the information from the office (they've been crazy busy down there).

Well, that's it for this post. I hope you enjoyed this glimpse of the bright, spacious, new Grade 4K classroom. I'm loving it, and I think the children are too.

Making Progress

Hello again. After my stressed out post last week I thought I'd share just how much progress has actually been made in my classroom. Yes, progress has definitely been made.

By Monday morning they had almost finished the wall, except for a couple of strips that needed painting and grouting between the tiles. That was huge. By lunchtime Monday, when I had completely finished sorting out all the school supplies, the painting was done. My assistant and I then started work on cleaning the room. Yes, the cleaning staff have been working hard, so I felt that it wouldn't hurt to give them a hand, so I spent much of Monday afternoon on my hands and knees scrubbing an incredible grotty floor. My assistant very cheerfully did the same. We finished the afternoon by mopping it, and by the time I left I was happy for things to be moved in.

After a few hiccups on Tuesday, eventually the move happened, and it was almost complete by the time I went home to have lunch and work on university stuff for the rest of the afternoon. I sent my assistant home at the same time and told her to take one last day off before our official start day tomorrow. Sometimes it's actually easier to work on stuff alone while you are trying to work out what is where. All that stuff, plus trying to help my assistant be helpful would have been too much.

Wednesday morning, with the help of one of the other teaching assistants who had come in to work on her own room I brought across the last few boxes (they were pretty light). Then it was time to start unpacking and sorting stuff out. Thankfully I had labelled the boxes fairly well, so I wasn't completely digging into the unknown. By the end of the day I'd unpacked all the boxes, plus my old suitcase (taken in when I'd run out of boxes), sorted quite a bit of stuff, some stuff is even in the correct places, and I'm hopeful that by the end of tomorrow (if we don't have too long in meetings) I'll be mostly set up. Here are some photos of what my room looked like at the end of the day.

The main area of the room from the door.

The other side of the room from the door.

These are most of the boxes I unpacked. There were a few more photocopy paper boxes and some that were just not worth saving, but these ones are going to be hidden. They are behind my locked teacher storage cupboard but I'm thinking I might just find an old vinyl tablecloth to put over them to help keep the dust out and to make them more invisible.

The blue table in this picture will eventually go out into the hallway
where the girls will put their bags on top, and the boys will put theirs underneath.

These two photos show the teachers work area. Buried under all that stuff are two desks and two bookshelves.
Another of tomorrow's jobs is getting that space sorted out and everything put away tidily.

These are the top two drawers of my filing cabinet. Since I packed carefully, it was a fairly quick job to file everything.
Some of the files in the top drawer are not in the correct order  yet, because I haven't created the labels for the new students, but it's all in there and secure, so I'm happy about that.

Looking across the room from near the blue table.

These two bookshelves will house the classroom library. The books are sorted into levels or "unlevelled"
 so it should be a fairly easy process tomorrow to put them on the shelves.

Some more boxes I emptied, and some things that are waiting for homes.

Jigsaws in boxes on the top shelf, along with some games. This shelf still needs some work, but there are a few more things to be added which are currently at home, so I didn't spend too much time on it today. All those books in stacks are for the classroom library, sorted out ready to go.

 Yes, there's still quite a long way to go. Whiteboards and bulletin boards need to be installed, as do window blinds, and I need to work out how to get electricity from the door to my desk (I'll be going in search of a very long extension lead tomorrow afternoon I think.), but it is definitely taking shape. I'm looking forward to working in this room, with space to move between the children when they are working at the tables, and a bigger floor seating space. Exciting!

Work in progress.

Back here I promised to take some before and after photos of work in progress in the classroom, and I did. These were taken the next day. The finished product photos were taken today (10/9) and you'll find them on a later post.

Looking straight ahead as you walk in the door.

The rest of the room. Notice the wide open windows. We are not allowed to have A/C on unless the children are in the classroom. Fans help a bit, and if there's a breeze that's good too (although sometimes both create more problems than they solve by blowing things around) but it was a long hot week.

Mr Dy's corner

Classroom library is just about done.

The overflow of the classroom library.

First day back ... for teachers

I've been back in Cambodia for just over a week, and today was the first official day back at school for teachers. It was great to be back. There were lots of new faces, especially among the secondary staff, and it's looking like being a great year.

We all met in the hall, and it was time for the round of introductions, then a break to meet individual, then time for some sharing by the principal about the history and establishment of the school.

After that it was off to the classrooms! I did get most of my furniture moved one day last week, and had started unpacking stuff, but then managed to get sick, so it had pretty much stalled at the stage of the photos below.

 

Today, with the capable help of my trusty assistant Choundy (Mr Dy), much more progress was made. All the boxes are emptied, and quite a bit of stuff got put away. In between there was much sharing of information with new colleagues and a little planning going on. I'll take some before and after shots tomorrow, and let's hope it looks a lot more like a classroom by the end of the day tomorrow.

 

Now it's almost time for bed, since I havea meeting with my fellow 4th grade teacher tomorrow morning to finalise our lists of school supplies to be ordered before the whole of school meeting in the hall at 9am. Looking forward to another fun day of getting ready, and to meeting all my new students next week!

Starting to Look Like a Classroom

Well today was an interesting day, and if it wasn't as productive as I had hoped, it was certainly worthwhile. We started off with devotions, then moved into administrative stuff, mainly for the US staff. After that we worked through the Child Protection Policy. This very important document was reviewed and discussed and then copies of the agreement distributed for signing. Working with children is a huge responsibility. They are trusted to us by the Lord and their parents, and it is very important that our school, and especially our classrooms are safe places for them to be.

After a short break for a healthy snack of pineapple & watermelon, the upper elementary (Gr 4 & above) and middle & high school teachers had a short workshop on the PDP Cornell note-taking methodology, and discussed how we can implement it into our classrooms. Much of it linked well with guided reading practices in elementary classrooms, but in this case the idea is to get the kids doing independent in their reading/note-taking skills. By the way PDP stands for Pre-During-Post, and it comes out of a uni in the US. I was quite excited by it, because it links perfectly with the fact that part of my fourth grade curriculum is research, so this is a great tool for me to use to help the kids develop their research skills.

After lunch it was off to the new school to see the progress. It's so exciting to see how much progress has been made, and to start visualising ourselves in real classrooms. Then it was back to school to get more stuff done. I do have bulletin boards started and some "welcome" signs in place, but there is lots to do tomorrow if I'm going to be ready for the children to arrive on Monday! I think I need to make a list of things to do when I get to school in the morning so I can cross them off when they are completed!

Meanwhile it's time for bed. No good starting without a good night's rest.

That's all folks!

Karen