Getting Organized

I am counting down until my first official Mother Goose Time class with Miss M and her friends (it's on Wednesday).  I have been busily going through the teacher manual, organizing the materials and finding a spot for our circle time activities.

I have a confession; when I worked in the schools, I loved the beginning of the school year because it meant trying out new organizational methods, creating forms and most importantly, laminating.  There is something so magical about the smooth feel of a laminated piece of paper.  That is why I asked for one this Christmas, before I even knew about Mother Goose Time.  My husband wisely purchased it off my Amazon list and I broke it out for the first time on Saturday.  I laminated everything that could possibly and reasonably be laminated from that little box with a school bus on it.  I even laminated the items that will only be used for this month (and my obsession proved useful when Littlest tore half the circle time decor down in less than two seconds and Miss M insisted on moving around the date cards half a dozen times).

So, my first piece of advice would be to laminate those parts of the welcome kit and monthly box that you know will receive lots of child attention.  I had to have a few of the pieces (like the calendar, map and theme poster) done at our local UPS store but it was not expensive and these are things that will be used over and over again for quite awhile.  If you plan on doing several months/full year of curriculum, I would recommend investing in a laminator.  Mine is Scotch brand and only about $30.

   

After laminating, I assembled the number line, birdhouse and weather and sight word baskets. I couldn't figure out how to laminate those and have the pocket still work but they are printed on nice card stock with a glossy/semi-laminate finish and should hold up pretty well as long as the kiddos don't maul them too much.

If I had my dream house, there would be a gorgeous, Pinterest-worthy preschool room with room for a circle time rug, investigation stations, art center, snack table from Pottery Barn Kid, the whole she-bang.  I don't so for now the circle time area is in a corner of my living room and pretty much everything else will take place at a hand-me-down Little Tikes table in the kitchen and that's just fine.

Right now I am experimenting with a binder and page protectors to house the remaining teacher tool and welcome kit materials as well as the teacher guide and planning journal (which are conveniently sized to slide right into a page protector).  I may go to more of a file box system in the future (I see it working more easily for storing leftover daily materials) but for now I had a couple empty binders and we will see how they work.  The materials for each lesson are still in their bags, in the shipping box, which works perfectly.

I've spent a couple hours looking through the teacher handbook and attempting to work up the courage to write in the planning journal.  I don't like writing in pencil but hate when I make a mistake in pen in something that's so pristine and new.  I will probably end up using sticky notes, to be completely honest.

Miss M got interested in what I was doing as I set up the calendar area so we went ahead and had a little tiny circle time.  I made (and laminated) three extra tabs that say TODAY, YESTERDAY and TOMORROW to put over the corresponding days so we can work on that concept as well as date and month.  She had a lot of fun with the weather icons and moved the cloud around several times before she was happy with it.

That's it for getting organized.  Mother Goose Time makes it really easy with their guides and pamphlets.  I can't wait to dive into the lessons on Wednesday, so stay tuned.