Bitter sweet, but mostly bitter

Last week was the first week with my new class. My new class is called the Crocodiles. These kids are 2 1/2 almost 3 years old. The first day of school was oh so very hard. I hated not walking into my class room. I hated not seeing my 10 beautiful babies. I hated not being able to talk to Kim and Brianne. I hated having 14 new children stare at me and call me Teacher. My name isn't Teacher. I hated not knowing where anything was in my new class. I hated seeing my old class walk down the hall and run to me screaming. They were scared of their new teacher. They didn't know who she was. I hated that my new class yells at me and runs from me. I hated not being able to snuggle and rock my sweet toddlers to sleep. I spent the whole first day of school constantly telling myself "This is my new class. These are my new kids." It was really hard. I felt like I was starting a new job. I didn't feel comfortable in my new class. I didn't know the parents. They didn't know me. We had to build that trust all over again. The first week was hard. Really, really hard. 14 2yr. olds is hard. I spent a lot of my time researching and talking with expert teachers on effective classroom management. By day 5 I finally felt like this is my class. My heart wasn't aching for my old toddlers. My heart was rejoicing when I walked in the room and the kids said "Hi Lacee." My class finally started listening to me. They finally started understanding the routine of the day. They finally started to clean up when it was time to. And to line up with it was time to. I have been very creative with my classroom management. These are some things that have helped me:

1. I play this CD that has clean up songs on it. They know when that is being played it is time to clean up. It is not time to play.

2. I have split the class in half- green circles and blue triangles. These are the groups they play centers with. These are the groups they line up in. These are the groups that take turn washing hands. It's a lot easier to manage 7 kids rather then 14 all at once.

3. I cut out bright orange hand prints. I lined them up along the wall by our door. 7 on the left side and 7 on the right side. When it is time to line up I say find a hand print. Circles on one side. Triangles on the other.

4. The sticker fairy comes at nap time. You sleep, you wake up with a sticker.

5. If it's a crazy day I close down all the centers except one. When they have showed me they can clean up then I will open another.

I know these things sound silly but they are working. I am less stressed. I was worried that the 3 day weekend would erase all my hard work- drilling these kids to listen to me. I was very pleasantly surprised that today was a great day!!