Monday, January 5, 2009

Goodbye Sentimentality - Hello Practicality!


I wasn't really emotionally prepared tonight when I decided to tackle the task of going through my ECE materials. Its been almost 2 years since I graduated from college, and I haven't really gone through these containers since then. It brought back A LOT of memories of my college days and especially my stressful student teaching days! I forgot how many things I made for each of my ECE classes. As I lovingly fingered each thing, I recalled many days of frustration filled with blood, sweat and tears as I tried to complete the many assignments that were given to me each week in class. There were many happy memories mixed in with the bad ones, just so you know!

I just kept piling things all over the floor...

It was extremely difficult for me to decide which things to keep and which things to get rid of. After all, each thing I made cost me lots of time and energy! However, as I debated back and forth on what to keep and what not to keep, my practical side eventually won the victory over my sentimental side and I finally got rid of stuff. Some things were easy to part with such as various containers and boxes that I collected during that time, but other things were a little more challenging. There were some things that I just HAD to keep regardless of the fact that I would probably never use them because of the memories they contained.

However, here would be 2 overly-stuffed, stretched-out garbage bags proving that I indeed did get rid of many things tonight!

Because the whole idea behind this project was to clear out my bedroom, obviously these things had to go somewhere. There were many things that I found tonight that I thought I could use with my kiddos in school so I put them all into one large container. I also filled 3 bags with textbooks that I thought would look a lot nicer on the bookshelf in my Kindergarten classroom. :) It will make me feel more professional to have actual ECE textbooks on the shelves! You never know when you might be needing a piece of information during the school day. ;)

In case you were wondering what the basket filled with white sock balls is all about, please allow me to inform you. :) In my curriculum development class, we had to create theme-related lesson plans for various age levels. I was in a group with a Winter theme. We broke this theme into even smaller themes for each girl in the group. My theme was Hot Chocolate. Sooooo, I got the brilliant idea to make a Marshmallow Toss for a gross motor activity. The children would be tossing the "marshmallows" into the "hot chocolate". So my Mom and I spent a couple of nights sewing together white sock balls to look like marshmallows. Well, since that time, these "marshmallows" have turned into many different things, so I thought I would take it along to school and let my kiddos throw them at each other...hey, it could be a snowball fight! ;)

This is what my ECE corner looks like now after tonight's purging.

Progress is definitely being made, but I still have a long ways to go. You never realize how much stuff you have until you want to reorganize it all!

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