Welcome to Room 18, Year One class with Miss Osborne!

The title says it all...welcome to my class! As I write this I have just finished my first ever week 0 as a teacher. Week 0 entailed a HUGE effort of preparing my classroom for the first day of school (next Tuesday, eep!) and now 

I'M DONE!

I would love to share a few photos with you on my progress over the week and final photos of my classroom, keep scrolling and reading!

I began with, what I like to call, an empty square. 

 

It looks really empty but I had a whole lot of stuff piled up on the side ;)

So on Monday of week 0 I came into my room to start the big move! (I was invited to come in on Monday to start prep even though teachers aren't actually meant to start until Thursday of week 0, yes, yes I know over-preparer).

The first thing I moved was my desk only because it was the only thing I was certain I had a spot for! By the nice sunny window :)

About 2-3 hours later everything had a place and looked a bit like this...

The large furniture all had a home! Now it was time for the finer details and decorations! Come at me laminater!

By about Wednesday afternoon my room started looking like this...

Outside my door: Welcome sign above door, "Where is room 18?" sign, Room 18 letterbox and a beautiful quote about being a classroom community. 
 

Inside the door! Starting to take shape. Don't mind the massive boxes full of stationery on the tables. The stationery order came and it was truly like Christmas all over again!

And the view from behind my desk!

Now Thursday and Friday of week 0 are mostly made up of training and development so not a lot of time was delegated to doing the final fix ups on the room so....I conned my lovely, amazing mum to come help me this afternoon!

                              Love ya mum!

And now for the final pictures of my 100% complete room after we added the final posters and details AND after my mum scrubbed the desks for me...again woman you're the best! 

Here we go... (there is a lot of pictures, I'm excited okay!)

Do you think I like blue? Maybe?

Tricky word wall and chill out zone/ reading area.
 

Class computers.
 

Front of the room for floor time and interactive whiteboard learning. With a step platform for those little year one's to reach it!

Whiteboard at front of room. Also 3 tubs are for home folders, literacy folders (homework is reading daily) and communication books.
 

The daily routine with times. Some magnets and our class roles and responsibilities list. 

My very sad looking classroom library. More to come!

Class calendar.
 

Book of the week!
 

Class birthday cupcakes with candles! 
(THANKS ROXIE!!!)

Front view of my desk.
 

Looking from behind my desk towards the door.
 

Looking down the side of the room towards the conferencing desk where SSO's can work one on one with students or students can do pair reading etc. Many uses!

Useful stationery such as scissors, glue sticks, rulers, pencils, coloured pencils, textas and sticky tape. Boxes for construction underneath.

Looking from door. Thanks mum for the gleaming table tops!
 

Looking from the conferencing area out towards chill out area.
 

My whole work area. Not that I will be here much mostly around the room teaching!

And there we go! Welcome to Room 18, Year one with... me!

I hope you liked it feel free to leave a comment etc. I'd love to hear them.

Let's finish this blog post with how it started...

Wish me luck with my first week of full time teaching!

Bye for now,           

Kirsten :)

The big question?

We’ve heard it all too often. 

“What made you become a teacher?”

Even if you’re not a teacher, or studying to be one, you’ve probably heard it! What made you become _________?  We hear this from people we know, family members, TAFE or Uni lecturers, and it can even be a big question in job interviews. DUN DUN DUNNNN. I said it. 

Personally I feel like I have been extremely lucky when it comes to jobs. Literally every job I've gotten was either by meet and greet resume drop in "oh hello nice to meet you, so you've got the job next Monday if you want it" or through a day trial (my first job as a waitress, I will never miss that profession. All the retail workers in the house put yo hands up in the air and share your united hate of the customer, yeeeeaahhhhh). And now I've landed my first teaching job through honest hard work (while on placement/relief teaching) and true dumb luck.

I've only ever had ONE interview in my life and that was for a university grant to complete my studies in the Northern suburbs (which landed me the school that landed me the job, see I told you dumb luck). I walked in absolutely crapping my dacks but my facial expressions, body language and honest answers to their questions told the interview panel the complete the opposite. Hey it must've worked I got the grant. 
My advice: fake it til you make it! 

Well ladies and gentleman I digress. I think I’ve come up with a pretty cool casual way to answer THE question. Lets hear it again.

"What made you become a teacher?"

And no it’s not “because I wanted to choose to be something that was nice and easy and comes with a big fat salary”...HEAVY SARCASM. That was necessary. So here’s a made up transcript from a possible job interview with say...a principal.

“So what made you become a teacher?”

“Well, in all your years in the profession are you still learning?” 

(I like to be annoying and answer a question with a question, pretty slick huh? But don’t worry we don’t stop there! Let’s assume they answer something like this...)

“Yes, everyday”

“That is why I became a teacher, because I am a lifelong learner. If I can teach my students that they are lifelong learners too then I have done my job. Students should know that the be all and end all isn’t at their end of year report cards or the % they got for an exam or standardized test. If I can help them realise that when they learn they learn for life they will have the opportunity to become open minded and enthusiastic learners equipped with the skills they need to be successful.”

BOOM. Did you like it? I thought it sounded pretty good but I’m probably biased because it came from my own brain. Let me know! Give me some feedback. You’re more than welcome to use these ideas at anytime someone asks you why you decided to become a teacher.

I wish I had some cool back story as to why I became a teacher but I don't really. All I know is I love kids, I want to help as many kids as possible and by some miracle give them the opportunity to, maybe not change THE world but to have the strength to change their own world for the better.

This is my last post before I go into school tomorrow to start setting up my classroom and organizing my teaching plans! Wish me luck and look for the next blog post which will be all about my first ever WEEK ZERO.

Kirsten :)