Five for Friday: We made it!

I almost made it through the first full week back and I'm exhausted. It takes A LOT to make me tired. LOL! The teacher work day was on Monday with Open House that evening but we had our orientation on Wednesday with the incoming Kinder families. There is much to be done in preparation =)

My very dear Kinder teaching buddy found this cute lamp to accent our reading super hero theme. It is awesome and the kids love it! Thank you Lisa!

The kids started arriving so we began separating and organizing all of our supplies for the year. I had to go back in the evening for a couple of hours because there was much to be put away =)

I follow the Kindergarten Teachers Unite page on Facebook and these little chairs seem to be the new thing. I had to throw away my old bean bag chairs so I'm going to try these out. The kids did a great job using them today so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. They are in my reading and library area.

Phew! The first day of Kindergarten may be the longest of the year. Teaching the routines takes forever but I hope it saves us time in the long run. I have a handful more than last year and it really seemed to make a difference. I told my friend that the beginning of kinder is like running a marathon... the first couple of miles are definitely the hardest until you get into that rhythm!

These are some of my favorites for teaching rules in school. "You Get What You Get & Don't Throw a Fit!" is great as is "It's Hard to be Five". We read all of these on the first day and related them to rules we were going to establish in our classroom.

My boys are getting so big. We didn't have any tears or fighting to get up for school (so far). This makes me one happy MOM!

I told you that I was going to try the BLOOMZ app out. I invited the parents in my classroom the night before school and had almost everyone signed up by the next day. They LOVED IT! I took pics of the kids getting off the bus as well as more throughout the day. I was able to send them thru the app and tell the parents what we were doing. I received a lot of positive feedback. If you are interested in trying it out, you can download it onto your phone or tablet. It's absolutely free and it seems to serve as a great correspondence tool between home and school. You can have a volunteer set up, send private messages, organize your classroom calendar, and much more. It's awesome!

LOL! This is what our counters look like in the morning just to get out of the door. It's nuts!

We made our Costco run to get all of the items we were going to need for those lunches!

In going along with our Superhero theme, I gave my kiddos starburst treat bags with a little message them. I thought my helpers were going to get the work done but I think they might have done more snacking. LOL!

Have a relaxing weekend!

Five for Friday: The time has come....

LOL... I had to send this to my secretary when I started getting a little ancy this week while working in my room =)

The time has come for the summer to finish and meet my new kinders next week. I'm always so sad to see my days with the boys end but then I feel the new energy of starting a new group of superheroes! It seems like I tried to squeeze a lot in these past few days...physicals, orientation, exit interview for the class I took, etc. Here is a brief synopsis of my five for Friday!

I got all of my favorite back to school books out for the kids next week. I'm sure you see some of your favorites too. Our reading theme this year is about leading the way to reading so our fantastic librarians have been filling the building with superheroes. I will also be carrying it into our room. I went in for quite a bit this week just to clean and throw out before setting all of my goodies out.  Next week, I will show you the final product. The biggest item I got rid of was my desk. Let's face it...in Kindergarten, who has time to sit down?! I never used it and the thing was ginormous! Seriously, it took both my husband and I to move it out because it was very old and heavy. This leads me to number two....

I still needed to find something to store all of my little things in and I found this little number at JoAnn's. It was a great find! They are 40% off this week AND you can get an additional 15% off if you are a teacher. SCORE!!

You know when you pull out of your school parking lot on that very last day and you have this big list of things you want to accomplish while you are home? I desperately needed to straighten our basement out. I was too embarrassed to post a before picture because it was horrible.  So now we are down to the last week and I still had not checked this one off. I spent an afternoon organizing and throwing out plus I probably could have thrown a lot more out but didn't ( I will have to wait until the hubby is out of town to get rid of it because it is mostly his junk. I say junk but really it's his prized possessions as in baseball cards and magazines =). I hope the kids go down there more often now.

Our school district just completed an AMAZING sports complex that is set to open on Saturday. There will be a ribbon cutting ceremony and then all of the sports teams were given times to test the field out. We checked it out today and found our brick that we donated. Kids were psyched to see their names =)

I don't know about your schools but teachers start back on Monday and we have Open House that very evening. I put this little number together to make it all go very smoothly. There are volunteering, conference, and get to know you forms plus so much more. Feel free to check it out in my shop!

Open House Hullabaloo!

Have a wonderful weekend and best wishes for a fantastic school year!

Five for Friday: In the single digits!

The calendar didn't say July anymore which meant it was time to get back into the classroom and get ready for my new crop of kiddos. I thought I would be able to quietly exit my house with all of my supplies when my oldest asked if the little one was going with me. He threw me under the bus because what little kid doesn't want to come have so much fun in a room with paints, crayons, dry erase boards and markers?! He was so excited that he ran and grabbed his new backpack and immediately started packing a lunch! Who could say 'no' to that?

 This is what it looked like walking in. It's so hard to get moving and deciding where to start but then I get going and I can't stop. Until....

 "Mom, come watch this with me....Can we play...Want to do the play dough?". Even though I had my bases covered, I didn't get much done. My main purpose was to print and laminate which is something I did accomplish. SUCCESS =)

 I didn't realize how much I had made for my Superhero classroom this year until it was time to cut out the lamination. I wish parents filled out the registration forms with the names that their child wanted to be called in the classroom rather than their formal names so I could get all of the tags done =) If you are interested in making your room a Superhero, you can find all of the goodies in my shop!

Fly Like a Superhero Classroom Decor

My little guy turned four this week. I can hardly believe it. We had such a great time celebrating all.week.long. LOL! I am a huge fan of Amazon Prime. I would much rather order online than go to the store. I am using the leftover lanterns to make into superheroes hanging in my classroom anyway. BONUS! We had family and close friends come to celebrate over the weekend but did his fun activities on the actual day. He was such a hoot. All day long, I heard "The birthday boy..." and "I will still be hilarious now that I am four!".

Goodies for the kids..... 

 I found this fun number on Pinterest....a popcorn bar! Jax loves popcorn so I thought this would be a hit and never heard of it before. Funny, though, the Target lady at the register knew exactly what I was doing as she was just at a graduation party that had one too. What would we do without Pinterest? LOL!

My kids are not real good vegetable eaters but they are excellent in the fruit department. Hello ninjas!

I was telling you about my love for this book when my son got it at a restaurant. Little did I know that it was part of their series! Amazon prime to the rescue again! The book came this week and I have been creating activities for the beginning of the school year.

I am happy to be finishing up the class I have been taking for my six semester hours. I had to complete 150 contact hours and then write a paper. I have been diligently doing a bit everyday and should have it finished by this weekend. I will meet for my exit interview next Tuesday to wrap it up. Everything seems to be jam packed into my last week at home...wellness visits, immunizations, soccer, and orientation. Where did the summer go? Let the games begin =)

Have a great weekend!

TpT Back to School Sale!

Get those supplies ready for your classroom! Everything in my shop is on sale PLUS you get an additional savings using the BTS15 code =) I am printing and laminating my assessment pack 

Kindergarten Assessment Pack , my SuperHero goodies Superhero Classroom Decor, and everything for Open House Open House Hullabaloo to get ready for my incoming class. I can't believe the time is here. Eek!