top of page

I learned a lot!

Creating my first classroom taught me a lot... creating it within a budget taught me even more. I read many blogs that talked about what you NEED to be ready for the first day of school verse things you can wait until later on in the year. When I first started off, I had so many ideas running through my head and I was overwhelmed with where I would start and how I would get it all done. 

​

The middle of my set up time, I left on my honeymoon with my husband. We were gone for almost a whole month. When I got back to the school, I felt like I was so far behind and I had a lot of catching up to do. I received so much help from my wonderful husband. He organized and hung up material on my bulletin boards! 

​

I learned how to organize a huge list and to remove the stress of not having it done all at once. I have been able to apply this  to my new career. Over summer, we plan out the school year with a curriculum map. It is very intimidating to look at. My mind wants me to try and get everything done at once and I just take longer to complete it since I am trying to do multiple things at once. After setting up my classroom, I have been able to take a large list and break it up day by day or week by week. 

​

Staying within my budget. I have been able to get a lot of help from the school district that allowed for me to stretch my budget a little bit further. Each first year teacher is given $250 in their district account to use. I was told that most teachers will use this money to by rewards for their treasure chest because they get used up. With the district money, whatever you buy needs to stay at the school district. Since I am a new teacher, I used the money to buy a lot of my supplies. Later on I will have to leave some of my stuff behind, but hopefully I will be financially stable to make these purchases with my own money so I can hold onto them for the rest of my career. 

​

Although my classroom looked very cute and well decorated, it did not feel complete to me. I felt like my room was still empty and I  had no idea what else I could add... 

​

It was up until the third week of school that I felt like my classroom was set up and complete. I did not do anymore decorating, but I had kids in the class and they were filling the blank, but decorated, bulletin boards with their work and the new material we have been working on. My classroom started to feel right and I knew I had finished my project perfectly!

             When I first began thinking about my EDGE project, I was thinking about different DIY’s I could make for the community. I came up with a few ideas but nothing seemed big enough or just right for me. I ended up making a quick change with my schooling and decided to take on an internship rather than staying in Cedar City and finishing with just student teaching. When I found out that I would be leaving Cedar I had to change my EDGE project to something I could bring up north with me. I decided that with all the work I had to put into my internship, I should show that work in a blog. Once I started making my blog and collecting the pictures, I noticed how fun it was.

                The first step that I took was plan out what my classroom was going to look like, what I was going to have to buy, what I could make, and what I would be given from the school district.  I had to go through each cabinet and all the random stuff around the room. It took about a week and a half (13+ hour days) to organize ever thing in the room. My classroom use to be a second grade classroom and I found a TON of second grade supplies and had nowhere to put it. I ended up with a pile in the corner that needed a new home. A few weeks before the school started we were able to toss it in the attic of the school! I created a lot of sketches and plans as to what would go where and in what cabinets. I like to have everything organized and planning it out before I started was a lot of help. Once I was able to figure out my purchases, I made them and started to work with decorating and setting up. I was able to complete everything on my list before school started and that was a very nice way to start off the school year.

                I have a goal to have my first classroom well prepared and ready for the new school year without spending more than $250. I was able to meet my goal with the help of the new teacher fund given to all first year teachers. The outcome of my project was the blog and the social media was created and is being kept up to date. I was able to stay within my budget and now I am creating blog post to show the inexpensive purchases or DIY’s that I made. I used a lot of organization and time management skills during this project. I felt that I was already organized and I had pretty good time management, but completing this project made me work harder on it and really solidify how I schedule and organize my “to do list” the best.

                I think that SUU decided to make the EDGE project a requirement because it allows for each student to stretch their minds further than just our degree courses. I know that many students take extracurricular courses each semester so they have something fun to do each week, but I wanted to finish school quickly and I did not take any of those fun extra classes. Have the EDGE class as a requirement made me find something I enjoyed and turn that into my class.

                EDGE represents putting an “edge” on any SUU student’s resume. It is a chance for them to show future employers what they did during college that is different than students from other universities. Each university has very similar courses for each degree, but each university does not have the EDGE project which allows for SUU to stand out.

bottom of page