Getting Ready for School

We are excitedly preparing for the 2011-2012 school year.  This year, we decided to begin our school year early and we will begin Monday, August 1st.  The kids are counting down the days.  I am so thankful for their enthusiasm, it makes teaching such a joy.
This year, our school dynamic will change considerably with the addition of the three youngest children to the schedule.  For the past three years I have taught all five children as a group for Bible, music, and story time, then allowed the younger children to go and play while the older children finished their school time.  This year, I will be teaching all five children together for some subjects, teaching the 2nd and 3rd graders together for a few subjects, and teaching the preschoolers and kindergartener for their subjects.  This new schedule means a lot more planning and organization and a longer school day; however, I think the joy of having all five children learning together will be worth the extra effort.
In preparation for this year's schedule, I have organized the individual core subjects for each grade-level.  I have prepared file folders for each grade by sorting all of our core material into daily folders.  Core subjects include: Phonics, Reading, Language, and Math.  Each grade level will have 1 folder per day.  In preparation for each week of school, I can pull the folders needed for each grade level and organize what we'll be doing for the week.  I can plan how to best teach the curriculum and what materials I'll need for each day.  I then decide what we'll do each day as a class of 5 and what we'll do one-on-one and as groups (older children and younger children). 
I have found in the past that the more planning and preparation I can accomplish before the beginning of school, the more smoothly the year will progress.  In the past, I have set aside reproducible activities and materials to print or purchase with the intention of preparing them when I needed them.  Somehow, I rarely found the time once the school year began.  Although it takes a lot more preparation in the summer months, I now copy all of my reproducibles and print off my e-books and file them before the school year begins.  Then, it is easy to go to the files and pull the worksheets I need each day.
This year, I've done a lot of updating in our classroom in preparation for school.  As our class has grown, we have slowly taken over the dining room.  This year, I have tried to minimize the amount of materials stored in the classroom so that the room feels more open and we have more space for activities not just sitting at our desks.  My favorite update is what you don't see in the room.  I have painted two walls in our classroom with magnetic primer (which we covered with regular paint so you can't tell it's magnetic at all).  These magnetic walls are such a treat.  I have two pocket charts that have magnetic backing so we can use those on the walls.  I also have lots of small cut-outs and cut-out buddies from Carson-Dellosa that we can use for lots of fun educational games.
All of our curriculum orders arrived this week so I've been busily sorting through it all, finding a place to store it, and seeing what can be integrated into the first few week's lesson plans.