Amy Cornet knows how many of her students will feel when they come back to school this week.
“I remember the excitement of new school supplies and new backpacks and new first day of school outfits,” the Sturgeon Heights Kindergarten teacher said, recalling her own first days of school.
But she also knows many will have butterflies in their stomachs about new teachers and classmates. That’s why she and other teachers have spent much of the last month making their classrooms as welcoming as possible.
Sept. 1 may be the first day of school for most students this fall, but for St. Albert teachers, the prep work for that day has been going on all summer.
More than just desks
Most teachers start thinking about lesson plans and other prep work for a new school year the day the old one finishes, said Sturgeon Heights principal Aaron Chute — even though they’re supposed to be on vacation. Many will brainstorm plans over the summer and discuss them with other teachers over coffee.
“We try and tell them to shut their brains off, but that never happens,” he said.
The last day of the school year is moving day for teachers, Cornet said. Everyone must strip shelves, stack chairs, and shove desks and tables out into the halls so the custodians can clean the floors over the summer.
“If you ever come in on the last day of school, it is so claustrophobic,” she said, on account of the halls being clogged with furniture.
Cornet said she typically starts planning her school year in early August, reading up on new educational trends and requisitioning supplies from Staples, Michaels, and The Dollar Store. (She has what looks like a cubic metre of Kleenex boxes.) Most of the physical in-class work starts the week before school starts. Teachers spend days manhandling furniture and shelving books to transform their rooms from a jumble of junk into a functional classroom.
Looser COVID restrictions mean teachers have more freedom this year in how to arrange their rooms, Chute said. They can seat students closer together, for example, and bring out those rugs and soft furnishings that have been stored away since early 2020.
Cornet also had to plan outdoor activities for her new Open Air Kindergarten program, which will see her students spend at least two hours a day learning outdoors. She got plenty of practice teaching outdoors last year, as the pandemic encouraged teachers to head outside.
Cornet said being outdoors keeps her students focused and encourages them to care for nature. It also provides some memorable lessons: when an owl swooped out of the trees in front of her class last year, the students went on to spend much of the day researching owls and learning more about them.
Cornet is optimistic that this will be a more “normal” school year, but acknowledged she might have to rearrange her classroom again if pandemic rules shift. She is confident students will take such changes in stride.
“The kids will adjust to whatever normal you present to them,” she said.
Cornet said teachers have to do all this prep work in the summer because there isn’t time to do it once school starts — they’re too busy welcoming their new kids and catching up with their former students when they meet in the halls.
“That’s our happy time: when the kids get back and the hallways are filled with that noise again.”
