The First Days of First Grade

Its' back to school time in Tennessee.

 

I've already got a week of school behind me in the 2015-2016 school year.

 

Last Monday was registration day.

 



My new first grade team and I decided to go with a Superhero theme.

 

We each picked a superhero, I'm obviously Batman, and wore our superhero's shirt on registration day.

 

We also each created a superhero bulletin board outside of our rooms so that the families would know which room was ours.

 

I'll have to take pictures of our boards and add them later because I totally forgot to get pictures.

 

Tuesday was our teacher work day.

 

And then Wednesday was the first full day of school.

 

I'm used to teaching kindergarten where we phase in our students for the first 2.5 weeks of school.  So having all of my class all day was new for me.

 

But we made it through the day and had tons of fun!

 



First up for the day, we took our first day picture.

 

This super cute sign is a freebie from Teacher to the Core's TpT store.  Check it out here.

 

I also finally got smart and bought some black material from Hobby Lobby over the summer to use as the backdrop for my many student pictures.  I just stapled it to the bulletin board of the classroom next door, it's being used for storage, and had the kids stand in front of it.

I am super excited for this school year because I'm looping.  So I only have 6 new students this year, the rest were in my class last year.  This made for a great first week of school because my kiddos from last year already know our routine and my expectations.  My hope is that they will help the kids new to our class learn these routines and expectations.

I made sure that I over planned these first 3 days of school because I hate trying to fill time.  We didn't get to everything on my plan and that is perfectly okay.  I would rather have way too much planned than not enough.

 

Thursday night was our back-to-school night.  So I wanted to make sure we had some fun work activities to put on display for our families.

 

First up was this super cute bus craft from First Grade, Blue Skies.  Check it out here.

 

As you can see from my desks, I didn't have any nametags on the desks yet.  I let my kids pick where they wanted to sit for the first 3 days so that I could see how my newer kids mixed with my last year's kids.

One thing I love about First Grade, Blue Skies' craftivities is that she always includes a ton of writing pages to go with the craft.  So I always have a lot to choose from.

Then I hung them up in the hallway.

This says: Wow!  I am in first.  Which is awesome because Miss Kristina is my teacher again.

 

I am so excited to be this group's teacher again.  They are pretty awesome!

I also had to get a handbook ready for our back-to-school night.

 

First grade decided to go with a flip chart this year since it would hopefully be less intimidating than a handbook.

 

I also love that it's colorful, has fun fonts, and parents can access important info in a snap.

 

It was also only 4 pages each so it saved a ton of paper.

 

There are lots of flipbook handbooks on TpT right now.  This one came from Ashley Reed.  Check it out here.

 

At first I was a bit intimidated, but once I read her step-by-step directions and looked at her picture directions, it was super easy!

After picking headings and typing in the info, I printed the pages front and back at home.

 

You have to print it front and back so that when you fold over the top, the text is going the correct direction.  This took a little trial and error, but I wanted to make master copies of each page at home, where it was a bit quieter and I could concentrate more, so that once I got to school all I would have to do was run it double sided through the copier.

This picture above is of one of my masters.

Then I copied each page onto different colored paper and put them in order of how they would be stacked.  The page on the left would go on the bottom and then I would go down the line adding each additional page to the top of the stack.

After I stacked the pages, I made sure that I could see all of the headings.

Then I folded over the top pages, creased them down, and then put a staple in the each top corner to hold the flip book together.

Tada!

 

I love how they turned out.

 

I also had some extra magnets, so I put a magnet strip on the back of each flipbook so that my classroom parents could put it on the fridge.

So here we are on Thursday night.

 

The entire school went with a pirate theme.

 

I hate worrying about putting a costume together.  So I went the easy way and bought a pirate t-shirt, headband hat, and stuffed parrot on Amazon.

 

I was so thankful that I bought these as soon as I found out our back to school theme, which was about 2 weeks before we went back to school.  Because then I wasn't running around at the last minute worrying about what I was going to wear.  (Instead, I was running around worrying about what I was going to do in my classroom on Friday.)

 

I had actually brought black capris to wear, but the air in my classroom doesn't work.  So I've been living in dresses and skirts this past week and probably will continue to until the end of September when things start to cool off.

My classroom, ready for families.

In addition to my glue tubs that I started using last November, I've added Tidy tubs to each table group.  (I saw these all over Pinterest this summer and thought they were a great idea.)  I bought these little baskets at the Dollar Tree and made some cute labels.  I love how they turned out.  And I also love that my kids aren't going back and forth to the trash can whenever we do a cutting activity.  They just throw their trash in the tidy tub instead.  And then I designate someone to empty the tub when we're finished. 

 

This also helps when you have kids that accidently throw away the pieces that they've cut out.  They can easily find their pieces in the tidy tub instead of having to dig through the trash can.

Glue tubs!

 

These things are so awesome!

 

I did a quick training session on how to use them so that my last year's kids could get a reminder while my new kids learned how to use them.  So far, so good.

Since I made a list a few weeks ago of things that I'm going to miss about teaching kindergarten; I thought it would also be good to make a list of things that I'm looking forward to about teaching first grade.

 

Things I'm excited about in teaching first grade:

• Teaching kids who have already been in school a year and know about rules, fire drills, how to line up, how to sit on the carpet, writing their name on their paper, etc.
• Kids who already know how to write their name.
• Giving my kids more independence with our routines and with their learning.
• More kids who can tie their own shoes.
• They're older but still love school and love their teacher.
• Going deeper into math and reading topics.
• Looping - I'm so excited to be with these 14 kids for another year.
• My new first grade team!

 

 



Summer Break

So summer is over for me.

 

We went back to school for teacher inservices last Wednesday and then kids come on Monday.

 

Sad.

 

The only thing I really have to show for this summer is my new classroom.

 

I worked on it all. summer. long.

 

While I waited for my floors to be waxed, I worked on some things for my classroom at home.

 

 

The first thing was this teacher toolbox. 

Labels are from Erica Bohrer's TpT store.

 

I've seen these things all over Pinterest the last few years and finally decided to get one.

 

 

Then I mod-podged clothespins for my new work display bulletin board.

 

 

Yes, they sparkle.

 

And I took a trip to one of my most favorite places...

 

 

I love you Container Store!

 

And made way too many trips to my favorite store for tubs.

 

 

Big Lots takes all of my money!

 

 

Then, I was able to get into my room!

 

I was not very happy about the bulletin board situation.

 

In my old room I had tons of beautiful bulletin boards.

In this room I have a whole bunch of shower board that was falling off the wall.

 

So I convinced my dad to take the shower board off (actually he suggested it and said that it was a lawsuit waiting to happen).  There was an old chalkboard underneath, and we put cork on top.

 

 

We used rolls of cork from Lowes and spray adhesive to attach the cork to the chalkboard. 

 

It worked awesome!

 

No bubbles or bumps!

 

 

Bless him.

 

He was working so hard, and this was Father's Day.

 

 My calendar bulletin board is ready for calendar items.

 

 

Next, I had found this really awesome pin on Pinterest.  Original pin here from live laugh learn in second grade.

 

I used black fabric so that I wouldn't have to worry about wrinkles or crinkling of paper, and sparkle scrapbook paper from Hobby Lobby.

 

The glitter on the scrapbook paper was coming off everywhere, so I brushed a coat of mod-podge onto the top and now it's glitter fall-out free.

 

 Remember those sparkly clothespins I mod-podged earlier?

 

Here they are!

 

Ready to clip and display my kiddos' work.

 

Next I had to move all my stuff left back over in my kindergarten room to the new room.

 

My old classroom and new classroom are on complete opposite sides of the building.

 

So I loaded up the back of my SUV, 8 times, and drove around the building to unload everything.

 

And it was raining.

 

So I tracked in mud, dirt, and grass along the way.

 

Grr

 

Next I had to sort all my stuff.

 

As you can tell, cleaning products were some of those things that I had unintentionally hoarded over the years.  So I went through everything.  Only kept what would fit in my storage tubs, and then donated the rest to our new first grade teachers.

 

After about a week of all day working, my classroom was pretty much finished, I'll show pictures of the finished product in a week or so.

 

So it was off to Vegas for SDE teacher conferences!

Surprisingly, my suitcase is the second smallest. 

 

I don't think that has ever happened before.

 

But I packed a whole lot smarter this year.

 

It is way too hot in the desert.  So all I packed were dresses and skirts.

 

We stayed at the Venetian where the conference was being held.  It's gorgeous!

 

 

I want to live here!



 Go Noodle was there!

 

They even had a cabana reserved at the pool for us.

 

I had lots of fun and learned lots of great things!

 

 Until next time Vegas!



I'm moving!

I had 2 goals for this summer.

 

Save money and relax.

 

Then, the week before school ended I was informed that I would be moving to first grade.

 

Right then and there, my summer goals went out the window!

 

 

I've taught kindergarten for 9 years and loved every minute of it.

 

I love the little babies and I love my kindergarten team!

 

I mean, who else would dress up like a coconut tree besides a bunch of kindergarten teachers?

 



We aren't just co-workers, we're friends and family.

 

So this was definitely outside of my comfort zone.

 

I don't like change!

 

Then, on a whim, I asked my principal if I could loop with my current class.

 

And she said yes!

 

Now, moving to first grade wasn't so scary.  I felt like I would be taking a piece of my home with me.

 

So I started taking things down, packing things up, and purging like crazy.

 

It's amazing how much stuff you can accumulate after being in the same classroom for 9 years.  Some of the stuff was shoved so far back in cubbies that I didn't even know it was there.

The first thing I took down were my bulletin boards.

 

Since that's the first thing I like to put up in my classroom.



The picture above was taken during the last week of school.

 

I had already taken down anything that wasn't essential.

 

As you can tell from the picture, our calendar, center chart, and schedule were all essentials.

I packed all of my bulletin board material, words, and borders into a tub.

 

So that I would have easy access to everything when the time came to put them up in my new room.

 

Luckily, I was able to leave most of my things in my kindergarten room over the summer because my first grade room would be waxed first, and my old room would be waxed last.  Therefore, I could move my things out in-between the two waxings. 

I'm super sad to be leaving this classroom.

 

Not only has it been my home away from home for 9 years but I'm the last teacher who will probably ever be in this room.  My school is splitting into PreK, K, 1st and 2, 3, 4 next year.  So all the kindergarten teachers will move out of this building and into the main building.

 

So much history here.

 

This building was built in the 1920's, has super high ceilings, 2 bathrooms, a wall of windows, tons of storage, and I loved that it was separate from the main building because I could tune out "stuff" going on in the main building and teach my kiddos.

 

I was the very last teacher to leave school on the last day of school.

 

So I went down to my new first grade room, which had already been emptied for waxing.

It really is a great room!

 

My friend Ashley has been in this room for the past two years.

 

She painted it last summer, and her mom made some awesome curtains.

 

That's some of my stuff you see piled up on the counter in the back.

Definitely smaller than my old room, but still a good size.

The tiniest toilet you've ever seen.

 

It's literally like a foot off the ground.

 

My friend Dee calls them "squatty potties."

I have one cabinet.

 

Thank goodness!

And a closet.

 

I'm going from tons of storage, to a closet and a cabinet.

 

This is why I gave 7 boxes of stuff to my kindergarten teacher friends, took 2 bags to Goodwill, and put even more stuff out in the hallway for the first grade teachers to pick through.

 

I had way too much stuff!!

 

So this move is a good thing.

 

It has made me more organized and more intentional about what I buy and what I keep.

Here's all the furniture out in the hallway.

 

It was only 6pm.

 

It had been summer break for 3 hours, and the cleaning/floor waxing team was ready to go!

Things I'm going to miss about kindergarten:

• Seeing my kids come in as babies and growing into students

August 2014

 

January 2015





 

May 2015



• Fun parties and special days

Pops and Pumpkins 2014

Thanksgiving Feast 2014



• Phase-in days - where kindergarteners come half days in small groups for the first 2 weeks of school

 

• How excited they get about everything because its all brand new to them

 

• My team!



I'm going to miss these ladies!