Back to School Night

I had a wonderful time meeting all of my new students and parents last night at Back to School night. If any of them are checking out my blog for the first time, I'd like you to know that my blog primarily shows projects we're done in the classroom, but also will have teaching resources sometimes. I use it as a professional and reflection tool. I do not post pictures of students on my website. I may start an album on my school website which is here when I get any pictures of students.

 

Homework

 
For the first day's homework, all of the 2nd grade team set out these bags with the details about
what they need to bring for the first day of school (waterbottle, snack) and the bag is for the students to bring three things that tell about themselves that will fit in the bag. I hope students are thinking hard on that today!

Wish List

I also set out a wish list with several items that parents could bring for the classroom if they are able to.  I will set this out again on Meet the Teacher Night (on Tuesday) along with some fall conference and guest reader sign up pages.

By request I will post some finished product pictures of my classroom with some things I set out for Back to School night for any teachers looking for ideas for next year.

 

I'm off to school now to go organize all my the classroom supplies! I'm very excited for our first day of school tomorrow! My next post will be about some changes I'll be doing to my Daily 5 program to cut down on some of the paperwork. Go green!

 

 

Bus-y Frank-ie!

I normally don't have time--or enough things created-- to post twice in one week, but I've really kicked it into high gear!  I think I'm probably working extra hard because next week I know that I will be busy packing to go visit my sister and new nephew in Ireland :) I'll be gone for a week, but will surely have more posts when I get back!

In addition to pinning like crazy on pinterest--you should probably be following me :D, I have also been making lots of things!

Indoor Recess

 Many of my indoor recess games didn't survive the year--including my Bopit! (I know! I thought those things were indestructible!)-- so I decided to try to prepare more things for this coming year's recess!

I made this Musical Twister game in college using fabric, felt, markers and a hot glue gun! I originally had a different spinner, but it wasn't heavy duty enough. That's why I've made new spinners! I'm hoping cardboard should be sturdy enough... time will tell!

My original storage box was an unused pizza box that I decorated, but I may need to upgrade to something plastic--we'll see what I come up with!

I'm glad I was able to touch up the marker and make new spinners because the kids LOVED playing musical twister last year :)

 Homework

I saw this idea on pinterest-- to have students fill out a chart when they do not turn in homework.  Here are some pictures of what I've come up with and here is a link if you want to have a copy for your classroom. Just click here.

I am still debating if I want to do weekly packets for students or have homework sent home each night. I tried both last year, but ended up doing weekly packets because students seemed to turn it in more regularly...

Any suggestions?

Classroom Library

As I hinted in the last post, I have started working on creating labels for my classroom library. I know that's not really that exciting, but I found a good template for typing out labels for a library or for addresses or whatever! You can download it here!

It a FREE download (you just have to sign up and yadda yadda, but no charge!). It is a very slick program with an easy download that you can keep forever on your computer!