First 2 Weeks!

Hey friends! Long time no blog!! Let me just tell you, the first couple weeks of being a first grade teacher were surprising!! Overwhelming, exciting, stressful, frustrating, memorable, and fun! 

Let's just start from the beginning! Back to school night was a blast! I had my room mostly complete and lots of surprises for kids and parents on their desks! I had a night before school poem and "ready confetti", a treat for kids, "What will my child be learning in first grade" sheet, and an info sheet parents filled out and gave back to me! The kids were shy, but had fun looking around their new classroom!

Here is a peek at my room!

The first two weeks of school we really focused on community building and learning the expectations for first grade! We still have a long way to go with learning our rules and how to follow them, but were getting better everyday! Here are some of the fun activities we've completed so far!

My outside bulletin board is based off of "The Giving Tree" by Shel Silverstein. We read the book and talked about how we can be more giving and why that is important to our classroom community! They did awesome with some of these!!

We also read the book "Lacey Walker Non-stop Talker" by Christianne Jones. This book led us in discussion on why it is important to be a good listener. This is something we'll be working on for a while :)

P.s. Lacey walker is an owl!

Today we worked on our ability to work in groups by completing a 24 piece puzzle in groups of 4. This was so good for them! We talked about what it looks like, sounds like, and feels like to be apart of a group, then tried it out! I had a few kids shed some tears because they were frustrated with the group! It is a hard skill for my firsties, but in the end we had some great discussions and everyone finished their puzzle! :)

Today we also decided that for our class pet, we will "adopt" an animal from the Louisville Zoo! The kids were sooooo excited, and I had to explain many times that they are not sending us an actual zoo animal! I let the kids look through the list of animals up for adoption, and they all voted and chose a Siberian Tiger! Next week we will have many discussions about tigers, we will name ours, and do a few writing activities based on our new friend. Our tiger will go home with a different student every weekend so that the students can come back on Monday and share with us what they did through writing and speaking! It will be a fun project for them! 

Also, this week I finally got my very own name plate next to my door! Exciting stuff :)

Next week we will continue to build our classroom community, start our montessori work plans, and do a fun unit were we will be studying our names!! I can't wait! :)

Week before I can get into my classroom!

So this week I've been thinking, I never realized as a kid, how much work went into my classroom and how much time, effort, and money my teacher put into making it perfect for us!  It makes me want to go back and hug every single teacher I ever had! But I can say that I have enjoyed getting everything together! It's so much fun!

My theme for my classroom came from School Girl Style . I loved the bright colors and the birds!! I really like the owls, but I feel like they are kind of over done, so they birds are a fresh take on owls!  I have purchased the bird cut outs, birdhouses, word wall letters, and labels so far, and I will probably end up getting more things from her!

Here are my bird houses- I am using them for table numbers!

These are the word wall letters-

I also got my book buckets for my classroom library from the dollar tree this week!  They are bright colors and match my theme perfectly! For my book bucket tags, I used the labels I got from School Girl Style and made my own categories with visuals.  I am hoping the visuals will help my little first graders to know where to look for their favorite books, and where to put them back when their finished! I will cut and laminate these tags, then punch holes and attach them to my book buckets!

Today I also finished printing my classroom alphabet! I LOVE it!! It is so bright and colorful! It was a Teacher's Pay Teacher's purchase from Cara Carroll's Store . She has the cutest stuff!! 

I got an Amazon order this week with all of the books I ordered for the first week of school! I got so many awesome books for teaching expectations and getting my firsties excited about first grade!! They all have fun activities to go with them, and I can't wait to use them in my lesson plans the first week! My favorite has to be First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg.  The story is about a girl who is going to a new school, and she's so nervous for the first day! They don't show her face throughout the entire story until the very end, when they reveal that she's the TEACHER!  I think that will be so relevant this year with it being my first year, I'm sure I'll be nervous!!

Last but not least, I cleaned out the dollar section at Target this week! All of their teacher supply stuff came out and I love it!!

I can't wait to get into my classroom Monday!!! It can't come soon enough!! :)

books & more!

Hi everyone! So I know this is super crazy, but I'm already having nightmares dreams about the first day of school! Seriously, I have had two in the past week where I'm in my classroom and kids start coming in and I have NOTHING prepared!  Scariest dream ever!!!

On a happier note, I finally got my teaching certification in the mail!  And my Conscious Discipline book! Oh, happy day!! :)

This book is really good for classroom management!  It's a whole system by Becky Bailey that is about focusing on classroom community and teaching behavior based on relationships, not so much about rules and consequences. I just started reading so I will let you know more about how I plan to implement it in my classroom when I finish!

Walmart has these really great area rugs on sale right now!  Lots of cute colors, so I had to snag this gray chevron rug for my library area!

I also went to haft price books today for the first time!  Talk about some good books for SUPER cheap!  Most of the books I bought were 25 cents, and they give teacher discount!  I also splurged for a few I really wanted, and ended up getting 24 books for $28!

The past couple of days I have been working on my Common core binder! It helps that I was able to attend planning for next year with my grade group! During that time I got curriculum maps for each subject area, a list of Montessori materials that can be used to teach those concepts, and some sample lesson plans! All of that is in there, plus any resources I have from college classes, placements, and student teaching that relate to what I will be teaching!

I'm looking forward to a productive week!

Summer Preparations

I visited my classroom this week!  I student taught at Kennedy so I am familiar with the school and staff which is nice! My mom and I went in this week to look at my room and take some pictures.  It's not much to look at now, because it hasn't been cleaned out yet, so all of the old teacher's things are in there. But it gave me a good idea of size so I can start planning how I will lay everything out and decorate! I LOVE the purple wall!!

Also, I've collected some pretty good stuff so far this summer!  Dollar tree has some really awesome classroom stuff for super cheap!  I got a lot of organizational buckets and containers, posters, charts, stickers, games and supplies!  I also went to a yard sale this morning of a retiring teacher! I got lots of good children's books, some resource books, worksheets, and a calendar set!  I also got two class sets of blank books so that students can create and publish their own books!  I can't wait to put everything to use!

My to-do list for next week:
Start thinking about bulletin boards, finish my Daily 5 book, think about my parent communication system, and make my classroom jobs chart!

What is everyone else doing to prepare for the school year?

Welcome back letters!

As soon as I got hired I knew one of the first things I needed to do was make my welcome back info that will be mailed to my students this summer.  I had one of the teachers on my team send me her's and I looked at letters and info I found on other teacher's blogs to create mine! I decided to send a "meet the teacher" letter, the school supply list, and a short questionnaire for parents to fill out and bring on our back to school night!  I think the questionnaire will be good for me to be able to look over and get to know more about my students before the first day! I will be making more info sheets about what we will be learning in first grade, our schedule, expectations, etc. to send home with students on back to school night!

I would love to see what everyone else is getting together for their little ones!

The Journey Begins!

I am so excited to finally be able to call myself a teacher!  Today I officially got my call from my school district with my offer to be a first grade teacher! I feel so blessed and excited that next year I will have  20-25 little people walking into my classroom with excited eyes and hearts that are ready to learn! I will be totally responsible for a year of their lives, and I'm not going to lie, it scares me a little bit! However, I am so lucky to have student taught at the school I'll be working in and the teachers there are awesome! I have made some great friends that will be there to help me along the way!

As a first year teacher I feel so lost with where to start to prepare for next year! I have made some lists and ordered some books and I'm just hoping to figure it out along the way! My favorite purchase so far is my Erin Condren teacher planner!! It is amazing! Totally made for teachers, it includes monthly calendars, student birthdays, tons of note pages, lesson planning by the week pages, checklists, and more! And it's super cute!

I've also bought the Daily Five book to read this summer.  I hope it will help me set up my reading block!  I've also ordered a Conscious Discipline book.  I have heard so  much about this classroom management system and I am excited to use some of the techniques with my future first graders! The rest of my to-do list for the summer includes Smartboard training, researching Montessori materials, and figuring out what I'm going to do with my classroom!  I will post pics as soon as I see my classroom!

Any teachers out there, if you have any advice for a first year teacher, feel free to let me know! I am open to any advice or suggestions!! :)