Off To A Great Start!

A great start to a great year! 

Welcome to all of my new kinders and parents.

You are now "o-fish-ally" a kindergartner!

 Summer Time Prep

So I looked at my sad blog and realized it has been a whole year since I last posted.   That might give you a little indication of what my school year was like - VERY CHALLENGING!!  Well now that my daughters graduation is over, graduation party is done, my nieces' wedding is done and the fourth of July is over - wow we have been busy- I am ready to start planning and preparing for the next school year.  Today I scrubbed my chair pockets and sent them through the wash,   Unbelievable how dirty they get!

Here they all are drying on my living room floor!

I love these handy chair pockets.  They are from School Specialty and well worth the money.  It keeps my kiddos daily folder and pencil pouch neatly tucked away until we need them.  This also keeps my tables clutter free.  I used to use table caddies and I just didn't like all of the supplies visible.  Not only did it look cluttered, I would find that it was a distraction for some.  While I am explaining a lesson, etc. some of them just couldn't help themselves and would start to play with their supplies - drove me CRAZY!!

So now that I have clean pocket charts for the upcoming school year my next project is to make a new "fake" cake for birthday celebrations.  Sadly I had to throw away my old one.  After 6 years of use it just fell apart.  I will post pics of my new cake as soon as I get it done!!

How are you preparing and planning for the upcoming school year?

Getting Ready and Gearing Up For a New School Year

Hard to believe, but I need to get back to school and get busy!  Went into my room yesterday to get a paint cup.  Dear sweet hubby is making me a new 4-sided painting easel station.  It is looking so awesome.  I will post pictures as soon as it is finished!  Anyway, went into my room and --OH MY GOODNES!  My room looks so bare and unfinished - but wonderfully clean!  I love the bright shiny clean floors at the beginning of the school year.  I have so much work to do.   I get so overwhelmed during this time of the year.  Seems like just yesterday I was packing the room up for it's summer cleaning! 

I have been so busy this summer!  Let's see what I have done for my dear sweet kinders this summer:
     *Made Zero the Hero puppet.
     *Made several small drawstring bags out of adorable blue fabric with yellow stars - will use these for dice and game pieces for math and literacy tubs.
     *Read, from cover to cover, Math Work Stations by Debbie Diller.

     *Organized all of my math and literacy games.
     *Repaired torn chair pockets - going on their 4th year of use!! PHEW!!!  Might need to make new ones!
     *Created new labels for my book tubs in my classroom library.  They look awesome - will post pics of those soon - as soon as I get back in with my camera.
     *Starting to read, AGAIN, Talking, Drawing, Writing Lesson for our Youngest Writers by Martha Horn and Mary Ellen Giacobbe

     *Bought several, several books from my favorite place to shop for them -- Garage Sales!!  Beefing up the old library!

     *And oh yeah------Creating my first ever BLOG!!!

Oh my goodness, I really haven't even scratched the surface of  all I want to do!

A teacher's work is never done!!