It's getting easier...

One of the things I spent LOTS of time on last year was organizing my units, centers, printables, hand-outs, parent letters, etc. into file crates and filing everything according to the theme, unit, month, and season of the year. I tried to do a similar thing with my electronic files on the computer. This being my fourth year in kinder,  I'm finally feeling like it's getting easier to know what to teach next week! I was able to open the "September" file, pull out some physical papers, open some PDFs and Word docs, and send them all to print for next week! This sure beats frantically typing something up while the kids are at recess and printing it out on my classroom printer!

This year I'm documenting better on monthly planning sheets each of the math & literacy centers for my various themes and focuses, along with lists of all the materials needed, the prep to do, and what to send to print ahead of time. With a list like this ready for next year, I can even send September & October work to print in the spring! That would blow the Print Shop Ladies' minds! I'm definitely the "Hey, I know this is super late but is it possible to get this back by this afternoon or tomorrow morning?" girl.

Now to figure out how in the world to do the same thing with my paper mini-books to send home... Yuck!

I can do this! =)

On Yearbooks and Sleepless Nights

Just a preemptive reminder to myself:

This year I MUST create videos/photo slideshows and yearbook pages THROUGHOUT the year! Last year I had an excuse since I was sick and gone SO much that I was constantly in survival mode playing catch-up. But really? I pulled way too many all-nighters the week before graduation finishing our year-end iMovie and scrapbooking our yearbook (when no moms showed up to help =(  ). This year I cannot do that to myself! Maybe this week I can create some default scrapbook layouts for each season/field trip/party so next year I just have to drop in the photos? Or maybe I can print out the photos in a blank layout and have the kids illustrate them after each event... That may be a cuter keepsake than my scrapbooking skills! Hmmm...

Ooh, I know! For the video I think I want to record kids saying what we did and where and when. Like a short little introduction for each scene, instead of creating a title screen! This we can also do throughout the year, and I really need to show kids the videos all along, otherwise there's no point in recording and saving them, since only 1-2 minutes of each event makes the final DVD! I wonder how much of this I can do on my new iPad?