One of the first things I needed to settle once it sunk in that this
move from fourth grade teacher to first grade teacher was really happening was to talk to the teacher I was switching
with regarding "all the stuff."
Most of our furniture
would remain in its respective rooms. Obviously the desks and chairs
were sized for different sized kids. Our teacher desks, metal cabinets, and
bookshelves are interchangeable enough, so they could be left. All the
grown up supplies such as tape, staples, Post Its and so on would stay
in the respective desks. No sense making more work moving around
generic materials.
What I didn't want to leave was my
file cabinet, which I spent hours spray-painting and cleaning up after
last year. I acknowledged it was selfish of me to ask her to clear out her old filing cabinet to be moved upstairs, as well as to ask the custodians to move them for me. But I felt like I had to make my own silver lining and it wasn't really hurting anyone. The classroom decor (bulletin board fabrics and trim,
letters, table numbers, and so on) were also items I spent time and
money on that I felt the right to keep. Design is down to personal
preference, after all so I felt like maybe she would feel just as good keeping her own (though she didn't say so when I mentioned it...oops?).
The student organizational
materials were harder for me to let go of. Part of me felt like I had spent a lot
of money to make all my bins uniform only just last year, and a lot of
time printing new labels for them. On the other hand, they were full of
fourth grade items. I wouldn't want her to dump her items whereever in
order to take her bins. No, I had to bite the bullet in order to
maintain a good working relationship. Goodbye new bins, we had a glorious 10 months together.
I also let her
know I was leaving all the papers and games and anchor charts that I
made. What else was I going to do with those? They're not applicable
to first. I told her that since I was taking my file cabinet I would
lay them all out in neat piles on the windowsill shelves and label them
all.
I told her that we should "tour each other's
room" before the end of the year so that we could get a good sense of
the furniture layout. Of course we'd decide if we wanted to change
things, (we would draw "classroom maps" for our new rooms for the
custodians) but it's helpful to see what works first as opposed to
starting from scratch.
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