School starts Tuesday,
September 2nd!
I have been concentrating on turning the mess
back into a library (more in another blog post later...once I've calmed down,
perhaps in a year or 2...).
However, I know the students are coming SOON and
I need my centers and copies and ideas and books and computers and iPads and
pencils (and a billion other things, you get the idea) ready!
Because the library is a little bit of a
disaster, I'm not sure if the computers are (a) going to be there, (b) going to
be available, or (c) going to be enough for 12 - 30 students...therefore, I
decided to take that center out altogether! So now the centers will be:
PreK and K -
- Checkout (practice until
October), with PreK checking out books to be kept in their classroom,
and Kindergarten allowed one book to take home.
- Reading Area (practice reading
with a partner, since Reading Buddies will also be starting soon),
and
- Brainpop Jr. on the iPad (I want
them to learn how to use the iPads, get used to the size, learn how to use
the headphones, and then we'll start making our own videos/pictures, other
fun stuff to come, plus easy and less planning for me! (Spoiler alert –
fun stuff to come might include Chromville....!)
1st and 2nd -
- Checkout starting the 2nd or 3rd week of school (depending on computer/data ready) - planning one book for 1st graders, 2
books for 2nd, and up to 3 for 3rd, up to 4 for 4th,
up to 5 for 5th….going to try it out and if it’s a disaster,
will scale back, but some of the students’ feedback asked for more to
checkout at one time, which I can TOTALLY understand as I often had an
entire shelf of public library books at home…ahem…I need to read 3 books
at once…doesn't everyone? J
- Reading Area
(practice reading with a partner, since Reading Buddies will also be
starting soon), and
- Explore SOAR
(the online card catalog) on the iPad - we'll start learning how to look
up and find books and I like the idea of the iPads, since they can walk
around with the iPad (not so easy to do on a desktop). Looking forward to
this change, and crossing my fingers that the
stars align
and the iPads, SOAR, and wifi all work together.
That will be September and
October. It takes that long to learn all the centers, get all the routines, rules,
and procedures down, and once everything is smooth sailing, I will change
everything and use some of the new apps I learned about today!
Comment and share how you are getting ready for
the new year!
Keep reading,
Mrs. Thakkar
Fonts used:
Calibri
(part of MS Word, and most programs)
