extreme classroom makeover

The last two weeks have been prep weeks for the teachers at the Park Care Center.  We spent three days at a wonderful teacher workshop in Jarabacoa, then dove in to prep our rooms for the year.  I'm coordinating early education this year, which means I'm overseeing/responsible for 4 grades in 2 classrooms with 2 teachers and 2 teacher's aides.  We're totally recreating our early education program this year - new curriculum, new classroom setup, and new schedules that include circle time, read-alouds, and learning centers.  So we had a lot of work to do!  When we arrived at school last Thursday, our first day of prep, this is what the classrooms looked like:

The school carpenter was in the process of sawing apart, reinforcing, sanding, and varnishing two walls of bookshelves so that we could use them in the classrooms.  After finishing the bookshelves, he sawed the metal legs off some old desks, somehow got the desktops off, and built new desktops for them.  Those old desks are now tables for two in our preschool/kindergarten classroom!

This Thursday, the furniture was finally done, the whiteboards were hung, and the games and manipulatives were divided between the two classrooms.  We had a LOT of fun moving bookshelves and desks, decorating the rooms, and setting up the learning centers.  Preschool and kindergarten kids have art, books, phonics, construction, and "casita" (imagination/house) centers.  1st and 2nd graders have art, books, phonics/writing, construction, and math.  Now the rooms look like this - quite a difference!

The 1st and 2nd graders start school on Monday.  The classroom is ready, the teacher... will be fine.  He's feeling a little unsure right now, which is fine, so I'll spend lots of time in that classroom the first few days.  But I'm confident that once he gets into the routine of how the schedule works, how the lessons laid out in the curriculum book work, and how to use the discipline system we agreed on, he'll be more than fine!  The younger kids will start later in the week, as we still have lots of work to do to get the teachers familiar with the curriculum.  (For anyone interested, our 1st and 2nd graders are using Rod and Staff, and our little guys are using Estrellitas.)

Please keep praying for us as we start the school year!  I've talked with the teachers a lot about how we're learning how to do this together.  What works, we'll keep, and what doesn't work, we'll get rid of and try something else!  Pray for wisdom for me as I learn how to empower the teachers.  Praise God for the changes we're making, that my boss is on board with everything!  I'm so excited about what this year holds!