A sparkly, hibernating surprise

A couple of weeks ago plans kicked off for bringing kiddos back in for the last 12 weeks of the school year and we've been rallying to get things ready. Today as I ran around my classroom trying to figure out what kids would need, what I could easily clean, or put into a smaller bin for a single child to use, rather than a communal center, I just got consumed by the chaos. My room was packed up and all contents stacked into a corner last spring to make room for the cleaning crew to polish floors and steam carpets. The goal today was to create many open, clear spaces, and have minimal materials out for children. I'm talking one shelf with nine different bins, things like Magna-tiles, counting bears, and blocks, things that students can bring to their table and use while maintaining distance from their classmates. Minimal, huh. My preschool classroom is far from minimal. 

I was darting around like a madwoman with my poor, new, dear resident teacher longing for direction so she could better help. I was stacking boxes and crates into a corner, covering stocked shelves of materials we won't use and camouflaging the whole mess with my big, brightly colored cloths, and wondering if there was a place the school could wash and stash all my lovies and linens from last year, that surely health code will not permit me to have available this go around. 

Like Andre the Giant I was moving and grooving bookshelves, slinging crates of books and blocks, and tucking away tubs of paint. I started to feel like we were really making headway and our strategy of stacking and covering was working. I looked out and saw an almost orderly room forming before my eyes.  I noticed that I hadn't taken the tape off my sensory table yet and when I did, oh my! Sparkly, glitter-laced sand sprinkled with foam letters, a completely magical surprise and a relic of days when three or four sets of curious and eager hands could all be elbow deep in sensory play together, hibernating in the dark for the last year. It was a little heartbreaking to dump that bedazzling sand out, and a little pang of loss hit me. 

I don't know if we finished our work today, but we will get there. It's so many unknowns to contend with, but just like everything else since last March, we will get through it. 

I can't stop thinking about that beautiful, sparkly sand :)