4 week Kindergarten job

I started a job in a kindergarten class after there were some issues with a teacher quitting, and the possibilty of hiring another teacher because class sizes were so high. To make a long story short, I was sortof an extra pair of hands through this transition.  I did testing, copies, setting up the room (bulletin boards etc) and LITERACY CENTERS (my second favorite area after a proper classroom library).


There were good and bad things about this job. Mainly good. I'll focus on the positive:

1) F*R*I*E*N*D*L*Y office staff!!  You would be surprised how often this is NOT the case. The face of the school. Seriously. Very thankful for how kind and helpful they were to me.

2) Very supportive and welcoming principal. Again, many principals don't always give the impression they care if I'm there or not (as a sub). I felt like I knew her after a couple days! And I felt so appreciated!

3) The teacher I helped was very open-minded and flexible with my ideas. She respected the experiences I had in kindergarten classrooms and let me set up the classroom for her. I also learned a TON from her. Super patient woman, wonderful with small children. Amazing to watch.

4) The team was welcoming to me and I felt comfortable eating lunch with them. If they thought I was freak for working so hard, they didn't voice their opinion. Some people have in the past. Why are you working so hard? Why do you care so much? Yes, these are questions teachers have asked me before. Thank you kinder team for respecting the fact that I enjoy working my a** off and not telling me I'm weird.

5) The class is an amazing class of sweeties. Like the kindof class that comes along every 5 years maybe. No crazy kids that are misplaced (I mean that politely: think appropriate class setting), a nice mix of high, medium and low achieving students, and they are all very kind to each other! It makes for a nice atmosphere.

OH!! And great news! The principal at the school bought my math portfolios for her kindergarten and first grade!!! Very excited to do a workshop for them!
Here are a few things I made for the class (the teacher that took over the class had never had her own class before, so I created most of this at school. Many things are from Harcourt or made on a computer.) It's mostly centers.

And we didn't spend ANY money!! I already had the borders, clear sheets and magnetic tape leftover.

Hunting for letters and tracing letters-foolproof!

Sight word phrases with magnetic tape on back
Harcourt pictures



Zoo phonics letter and sound match



As Fast as You Can!
I saw this in a kinder class with egg timers!



Match letters-resources from Harcourt
9 letters in each bag (18 cards so they have a match)



Sort by sound
This is for the low achieving group, hence the words printed on the card.
Harcourt resources

Name tracing

ugg! don't know why it rotated and I can't fix it!
This is where they keep their leveled reading baskets.
The high group has a mix of blue and green books,
the low group has mainly red (below level) books, etc



sorry I don't know how this got rotated

Writing center-still need to put up some "I can" statements
and a writing formation poster

I have to go to bed now. I hope my next post will include downloads of some of the centers I made. But I don't know how to upload that yet.