Wednesday WOW and I Need HELP!!!!

I'm linking up with Em @ Curious Firsties for her weekly linky party Wednesday WOW.

My 1st wow is personal. Delaney still loves her school! She decided she wanted to play basketball. The coach asked her to play, not because she had seen her play, but because she needed another player. lol  Delaney has never played any sport before so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. They had their first games on Tuesday. I couldn't tell from watching her if she liked it or not. All of the other girls seemed very competitive so I thought that might intimidate her. The minute we got to the car she said, "That was so much fun!" 

My other wow is also a plea for help. One of our kindergarten teachers took a leave of absence right after Fall Break. She is not coming back. As I have said before, we cannot seem to get any subs to our building. When that happens they split the kids up. So one day I had 4 extra kids, then 6, then 3 and then last Friday 7 extra kids. There is a teacher shortage in Oklahoma, probably due to the low pay. The prospects of getting a new teacher seem slim. Since we didn't feel like they would be able to find a teacher, the other kdg teach, myself and the other 1st grade teacher offered to take large classes to make sure those kids would get an education. 

This past Tuesday we made the switch. Now we have one kdg class with 31 students, one first with 30 and I am teaching a kdg/1st split that has 14 top kdg students and 17 of my 1st graders. A kdg/1st split is a rather odd split. I taught kdg for 13 years so I do have some experience. I also know that in the last 4 years that I have taught 1st that many kdg classes have dropped things like housekeeping (which makes me sad, BTW). Since it happened so suddenly, I haven't had time to get my act together on how I am going to make this work. I have a few ideas, but I would appreciate any ideas you may have.

I do want to have some blocks and things for the kdg students. I'm thinking that the 1st graders will get to play with the blocks on the carpet, if they have finished the work at that center. I have a magnet area and a small library just for the kdg students. I think my first task is to get some centers set up and keep them consistent so they will be able to work independently. I do need some time to work with the first graders.

So far, I have thought about having one group do centers on Monday morning while I work with the others as a whole group and then later in the day flip flop so I can introduce the new skills. Then on Tuesday-Thursday have 3 rdg centers with kdg, including teacher table while the first graders are doing math centers then in the afternoon just the opposite. I am doing as many things as I can with both groups, maybe making adjustments to fit the class. I'd love any suggestions you have.