Dirt...Strikes...and Classroom Pics...

    Well, so I failed in trying to get classroom pics over the weekend and with good reason!!!  I was busy getting DIRTY at the Dirty Girl Mud Run held in Western New York this past Sunday morning with a few of my friends… and that wiped me out for the rest of the day…all the way into Monday!

   
     Anyhow, in other news....my former employer, Chicago Public Schools/ Chicago Teachers Union is on strike... for the first time in 25 years…and I think I have been feeling a little homesick lately. My husband says I should be glad I am not there… but I WISH I was there… fighting for what teachers want and what teachers and students DESERVE. THAT is an IMPORTANT fight to be fighting!!

    I stand by my teacher friends in Chicago 100000%.  It is not all about the money, it is about what it has always been about… RESPECT for Teachers and RESPECT for Education.

    I can rant on and on about this but I will probably lose all of you.  Just wanted to note that my heart is in Chicago, it is where my teaching career began and if it wasn’t for the experiences of working with inner city children and families in Chicago, I would not be the teacher that I am today! Stay Strong Chicago Teachers! =)

   So back to my teaching life here in Buffalo… one reason why it has been so hard to get classroom pics up is because, even in week #2, I am still changing something in one way or another! I am still working on my classroom arrangement so that it suites the needs of my preschoolers. And it seems like those needs change constantly and the room has to be adjusted everyday!

   So… here is what it looks like today! (It will probably change 3 more times before the month of September is over!) 

   And actually these pics are only one half of the room b/c at the beginning of the year, I slowly ease the children into centers, so that I can teach them how to play and clean up in each area. The pics of are the only centers/ areas that were "open for business" LAST week.

Circle Time / Rug Area

Library

Puzzles & Blocks

    This week, I have introduced and "opened" the Art Center, Listening Center, Housekeeping Center and Sand & Water Center. 

    More pics later... I am exhausted with all this Strike Business (and I don't even teach in Chicago anymore!)....time to sit down and watch the 1st of my Fall Shows Lineup: The New Normal... =)