Back to School

Hello lovelies!

Can you believe that it is almost the end of August?? For us WA teachers we have not started school yet, but classroom reconstruction is in full swing! This summer was a blast but went by WAY to fast! I feel like I blinked my eyes and summer was gone!

My hubby and I are taking our final summer trip this week for a wedding, and when I return it will be time to report for staff meetings?!?! So crazy!

I tried to enjoy every minute of summer and not come into school, and I accomplished that! I only visited my classroom once to grab something I needed and then took off! As I entered into my classroom last week for the first time a sudden rush of nerves came over me! I was crazy nervous and stressed all at once!

Looking around at the classroom knowing I had a lot of work to do and get ready for a brand new bunch of kinders overwhelmed me! The longer I was in there I realized, I can do this!

I decided this is going to be "my year" of great teaching! Don't we always say that? I reflected on last year and know what I want to work on as a teacher to better the environment of the classroom and the learning of the students.

I began to slowly tear off the paper from the shelfs and pull out the materials I put away to see what I had. I feel as though we all go a little crazy during the summer buying new goodies for our class, and as I open all these goodies it feels like Christmas morning! I can't wait to share all these fun things with my new bunch of kinders!

We now have our class list and have learned the names of the students, and cannot wait because next week we will be meeting these sweet little ones and their families!

I will keep you updated on the progress of my room and my prep for starting the year off great, but I will share with you so far what I have done! Enjoy!

 Room all ready for summer

 Starting over this year

 Boy do I need some new circles for my table

Start of classroom for this year! 

 Progress in the calendar area

 Loving the switch for my dramatic play area this year, 

my kitchen is my fav part of my room

 Our new friend Ted

Read Across America

Read Across America is one of my favorite events that happen throughout the school year. The excitement it brings to literacy and to reading outside of school is amazing. This year I decided to head up the read across america commitee at our school. It has been a whirl wind and busy, but well worth it!

We kicked off last week with a door decorating competition. Each teacher that chose to participate decorated their door like a different Dr. Seuss book. As the doors were going up throughout the week, the students were able to walk around and vote for their favorite doors! Once the whole school had submitted their votes the committee tallied the votes up and picked our winner! Of course we had a tie! We had so many amazing doors it is to hard to pick!

 

  My horton door "We are Here, We are Here!"

 Winning Door The Lorax

 Other Winning Door Oobleck...yes you can actually touch the oobleck on the door so cool!

Last week for Dr. Seuss's birthday the kindergarten team along with many other teachers decided to dress up in their best Seussical gear. I put on my hat, ears, and tail to become Cat and the Hat. My co-teacher and her student teacher dressed up as Fox in Sox! All the outfits were so fun. 

Throughout his birthday we filled the day with Seuss activities. We read about who Theodore Giesel Seuss was and why is so important to literacy. We did some 1 fish, 2 fish sorting and graphing, hop on popcorn snack, and a creative free draw of a Dr. Seuss character. Boy was I one tired teacher at the end of the day!

                       

 

  

These snack tags will be listed as a freebie on my blog and in my TPT store soon!

As we continued through our week, we ended with book character day! This was one of our school wide spirit days! The kiddos did a amazing job in dressing up. In my class alone I had 18/21 students participate. My costume was probably one of my favorite things I have ever dressed up as....Chica Chica Boom Boom. My team mate dressed up as Chica Chica 123! So much fun and the students loved it! My class ended up winning the spirit day count! We now get a giant stuffed frog in our class for the next month! We are the Penny Creek Frogs so the students are super pumped about it!

             

   (co-teachers kiddos all in my class)

The fun continues for read across america as we are doing a full sprint week this week, everyday is seuss themed dress up day! Tomorrow is Yipes its Stripes day. We are also doing a school wide reading log competition, where the students keep track of how many minutes they read. At the end of the month there will be a overall winner for primary and intermediate!

What does your school do for read across america? I would love to hear about it and get ideas for next year! Have a great evening! Heres to another crazy Seussical day ahead tomorrow!

Hello Blogging World

Hello Blogging World!

    I decided that it is a new year and a new me! My goal is to blog at least once a week, if I can get better then I will shoot for more!

    The year of 2015 brought many ups and downs and crazy in betweens, and so far 2016 has been a whirl wind! I am looking forward to what the rest of this year brings! As I began to think about this year I made many goals for myself, one being taking more time to do what I love.

    I have been connected in the teacher blogging world for a while now, but have not yet embraced my own blog! This is the start to a new me, as a continue to grow as an educator!

    Throughout the month of January a few things we have been focusing on are: snow, arctic animals, and the story of the mitten. The students have been creating some great snow projects but one of my favorites are their snow globes.

    Before the students made their own snow globes we brainstormed what we would do if we lived in a snow globe, boy did they come up with some pretty creative ideas. I think my favorite one is  " I would say WHOOOPEE!"

    Once we finished brainstorming the ideas they were able to begin making their snow globes. I had taken their picture as if they were in the snow prior to this day so they were able to have these ready to go once their snow globe was finished!

    This past week was one of the craziest weeks yet in my teaching career. Even being a short week it felt like a century long. The students were all giddy and wild about having a short week….and let me tell you I think having the planets align is worse than a full moon! They were crazy!

     Even among all the craziness in kindergarten this week, we still were able to celebrate MLK day and truly dig into some great conversations, 5 & 6 year olds can get pretty deep when talking about these things! They really began to realize that it is ok to be different, and that we are all alike on the inside. Their conversations amongst each other were priceless.

The students were able to share with one another what their dreams were.

We recorded these dreams in a bubble with a self-portrait.

The students also did a directed cutting project of Dr. Martin Luther King, that had their own flair to it . They turned out pretty stinking cute! 

Heres to a new week this next week, and to many blog posts to come! In the future I will make sure the pictures are a little better quality, but hey you have to start somewhere! 

Thanks for reading hope you enjoyed!