First Week

This has been a busy week! I have 22 wonderful students in my classroom. I'm excited for the year ahead with them.

The first week is always challenging. It's important that rules and routines are discussed and understood. And this challenges me to be creative with my teaching because I'm not just going to sit and keep talking about them. This is too boring for me and for my students. I have to explain them and model them in a way that gets the point across. I role play different scenarios with my fabulous teacher assistant and get a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" if it's a good choice or a poor choice. I use puppets and I read books that help me get the message across. I'll keep discussing the rules every day, but the first week sets the tone.
Now I'm busy creating learning centers for the week. And of course, the "to - do" list continues to grow, but I'm hoping I will have more of a balance throughout the next few weeks. I'll be posting my latest creation soon!

Tips for First Day

I am so excited for the first day of school to begin! We start off with a 1/2 day of school tomorrow. I'm doing my best to remember how everything needs to be explained to the K kids in the beginning of the year. And it's important to give these gentle lessons in between some movement. We can only sit and listen for so long! So we'll tour the school, practice getting in line, shake our sillies out, go to the bathroom as a class (we don't have one in the room), etc. And I always plan too much because it's better to be over-prepared than under! Then before I know it, the half day is over!
I want to make sure that the rules and consequences are laid out and that the students know that their classroom is a happy, safe place where learning is fun.

They will receive the certificate below to color:

It's available on my TPT site.