Wednesday, January 4, 2012

New Year, New Room, New Way

I've never been much on resolutions. I've never really gotten on the "new years" bandwagon before. I didn't this year, either. I mean, I've made some changes that happen to coincide with the New Year's holiday. Just not not not "resolutions"... it's like if you call them that name, they are doomed to fail, or something. (maybe thats just me.)
Anyway, our 2nd semester of Kindergarten started back on Monday the 2nd. Blue Elphant was excited (relieved) to be back to a more structured day. I must remember that while I may be more of the spontaneous type, BE thrives on a schedule.
Truthfully, we only took a handful of days off for the holiday, but I was so busy I hardly noticed the break! (any other parents think Christmas flies by way too fast now that we are grownups??)
I was excited to begin teaching again. I was REALLY excited to begin in my "brand new" schoolroom.
When we started this venture in August, we were schooling in the kitchen. It worked, but i always felt claustrophobic. The kids never do stay in the playroom (our upstairs bonus room) when I ask them to, so switching half the room into a schoolroom was the perfect solution.
So we have a new semester started in the new year, a new space for our learning, and a new approach as well. I now have written a "schedule" of sorts for my BE to follow for each day. We start everyday with prayer and pledge, then begin our subjects. I have designed the day so that he gets mini "focused" breaks throughout school. Read a book in his reading chair (the rocker that my too-big-too-fast elephants have outgrown), or play a game with me and PE. Monday we played Candy Land (and it counted for school!!). He also gets built-in "songs and silliness time", in which we can jump around and sing and shout. Every 5 year old male elephant has to get his ants out of his pants after awhile! And, he knows that at the end of every school day he gets time on his "Scout Computer" (Leapster) before I make lunch. This structure and bit of predictability has really helped BE so far this school year.
New Year, New Room, New Way.
Its working for us, and BE is thriving. And that is just about all that matters to me! :)

1 comment:

  1. Sounds like it is going really well! Don't you love fresh starts?

    You mentioned your kids were into dolphins - one of my oldest's absolutely favorite activities is to take a set of plastic dolphins we have and play with them in the sink. we have mesh bags to use as nets and I often add little tupperwares to make caves and rocks and such. He can spend hours playing dolphins :-)

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