Plans, hopes and teaching goals

As mentioned before, I have sat through full days of information driven meetings, sessions and seminars the last couple of days for my job.   While it is obvious that the material is meant for the veteran, not the newbie, I have a couple of take-aways that I have helped me jump start my planning for this school year:  

1. Take lots of notes of things that relied heavily on prior knowledge/previous involvement in the district so that I can invite new teachers to have lunch with me next year and fill them in on everything I wish someone would have explained to me this week.   I would love to be an honorary mentor to new teachers someday.  I think it's really important to stand in the gap for other people whenever possible.  
2. Use puppets!  I was laying in bed this morning thinking about how to teach my NUMEROUS special ed kindergarten classes in a way that would effectively keep their attention.   I have really nice puppets from my days with Child Evangelism Fellowship and I think I am going to name one of them "Sam the Scientist".  Sam can help me highlight all of the things I really need my students to pay attention to.  I think deciding when to use him will help me focus my lessons and hopefully keep my students engaged. 
3. 3 weeks of classroom management = 33 weeks of effective teaching.   One of the seminars I went to explained that it usually takes 3 weeks of diligent classroom management to establish a positive learning environment for the rest of the year.   I am keeping that number in mind as I battle my way through the first month of school.   
4. Make a seating chart.  I have been having a really hard time deciding how to set up my classroom, especially because there is junk everywhere.  I spent 2 hours taking inventory the other day and only did one corner of the room!  I think that if I make a seating chart for each of my classes it will help me figure out which area of the room I want to teach my different classes in.   With such a rapid turn-over of classes all day long I know that I am going to need a solid understanding of how to utilize my teaching space.  
5. Write detailed lesson plans for the first week (yikes!).   Because this is my first year teaching, I need to turn in all of my lesson plans to a designated supervisor every Monday morning.   I think this is great accountability, especially because I have too many students to not have a solid plan in place.   I've had a hard time working through the Science material to pull together lessons but I'm sure I'll get the hang of it eventually.  Oh science! 
6. Figure out what kind of rules and policies I want to enforce in my classroom.  Thoughts/suggestions?! 
7. Make a bulletin board.  Originally I was going to make one about science but since I don't know a whole lot about science just yet, I think I am going to make one to introduce me.   One teacher told me that her students will ask me things like "do you have a cat?" "do you have a boyfriend?" "why not?" I think being willing to share my life with my students will make me more approachable and hopefully build enough rapport right off the bat to quickly establish good respect and listening.   I just have to decide what I think they should know! 
8. Even though I have a packed schedule, I hope to make time to greet students at the door when they come and then say goodbye to them at the door when they leave.  I think this is important because there will be times when my students need to know that I like them, even if I didn't like their decisions or behavior.   
9. Figure out a record keeping system.   This one. . . well. . .it's going to take a lot of brainstorming to make it effective, manageable and useful! 
10. Start a substitute teacher box.   Long days, stress and well, everything that has encompassed the last few weeks has left me on the brink of getting sick.   I know that because I am having a hard time figuring out my job, there is no way a substitute teacher will be able to walk into my classroom and teach without some practical resources and instructions.   Knowing that I will NOT be writing sub plans while I am throwing up in my bathroom, I need to proactively build a box of materials in case of personal emergencies.   
11. Take a deep-breath and enjoy the learning process.  I have worked really hard to get here and I cannot let a mountain of unknown information or the hugeness of the task at hand prevent me from loving teaching.   There will be ups and downs but I am doing this because I believe that every student deserves to have someone in their day who is committed to believing the best in them, smiles at them instead of frowns and supports the weak areas.   The reality is that we all have weak areas and it hurts when people poke at them.   Students who are in special ed get there weak areas poked at all day everyday.  No wonder they resist learning!