First Day of School Keepsake Bears

I made these for all my kids to give them on the first day of school. I wanted them to feel welcome at school and to know we cared about them. They are magnetic clips to hang children's artwork on the refrigerator made with clothes pins and bears cut out of foam. They have a special message written on them and a note attached in English and Spanish. I am hoping they helped put the parents' minds at ease knowing that we not only care about their children, but want them to know (in their own language) that they are special!

My workspace

What did you do for your first day of school?

First Day Back!

Today was my first day back to work. Orientation. Nothing too exciting, but I will hit on the major points. The kids stayed home with dad who is not working at this moment. He got laid off a few weeks ago and that is why I stopped writing the Chronicles of Summertime series.

This year, we will be focusing on trying to raise the children's KRA-L scores when they go to Kindergarten. The KRA-L is Ohio's Kindergarten Readiness Assessment (in Literacy). The 6 areas they test on are:

1. Answering who, what, when, why, and how questions
2. Repeating sentences
3. Identifying words that rhyme
4. Producing words that rhyme
5. Identifying letters
6. Identifying beginning sounds of words

I have been thinking of things I can do to promote these in the classroom. Lots of Dr. Suess and nursery rhymes immediately come to mind. I will be pondering on this more and probably scouring Pinterest for ideas. More on this later.

Also, I am excited about a research project on the topic of reading comprehension through The Ohio State University that I volunteered for today. It will last throughout the school year. If I am one of the teachers randomly chosen to carry out the activities, I will get all sorts of resources and be trained on doing some lessons with the kids. I will also be video taped which I am not looking forward to, but I think it will be great for the kids as well as make lesson planning easier. Hopefully it will also align with the KRA-L assessment work we will be doing.

I am looking forward to getting into the classroom and thinking of how I am going to set it up differently this year! Happy back to school all!!!!

First Week Back

Well, I have officially started back to work this week, so I can actually say TGIF! So far, we have had 2.5 days of training, so I have only been in the classroom 1.5 days. But I just wanted to share a couple of things I have made and done. I am also at a different center this year, so there will be plenty to organize and prepare!

This is one that I thought would be easy for the beginning of school because most kids already know this rhyme. The pictures are held on by velcro (or they WILL be as soon as I can get the thing laminated, resource room laminator died). I will probably choose one person to help find the right picture and place it in the correct place.

Helper chart. Although I really love this one, I can't take credit for it. The teachers that were there last year made it, but I wanted to share as it is SOO cute! (Close-ups below)

And.... my favorite area so far. Writing center. I love the little square things on the left, red and green. They are kind of like eye spy bottles with letters hidden amongst the beads!

One last thing I wanted to share is a CD that I have reserved from the library. I want to use song 9 which I heard used over the summer at the library's toddler storytime. It is an action song where the kids put on their glasses and get ready to read the book, but oh no! Is there something scary in there? Quick, shut the book! It's very cute and I think it will be a good transition into storytime.

Motivational Monday

This year in Head Start I am looking forward to a great year! I want to focus on the needs of my children and have the best year we can. Lots of play, lots of learning and lots of <3!

Link up to CFC's Wonderful Time of the Year Linky Party

Dollar Store Diva

Here are some of the new items I have bought or made for the classroom and how I will use them.

Dollar Tree: $1. Not sure if these will stay in the classroom or if I will be tempted to bring them home and use for scrapbooking ;) These would make excellent frames for children's work to hang in the hallway or border for a sign. Or just put them in the art area, so the children can use their own creativity with them.

Spinner! Dollar Tree: $1 (Is there anything that's NOT $1 in Dollar Tree?) Anyways, this can have many uses. I love how big it is with the big numbers and colorful sections. We will probably put this to use with some homemade board games.

Ok, so I did use materials from our resource room at work, these are all things that can be purchased from a dollar store. Caterpillars for use with the Eric Carle book The Very Hungry Caterpillar. More to come on The Very Hungry Caterpillar! So, stay tuned!!!

Organization

Well, Summer is winding down. Time to start thinking about organizing your classroom for another wonderful school year! Which means, back-to-school shopping with all those crazy deals that a teacher just cannot pass up. Well in the last month or so, there have been a couple new hobbies I have taken up, Pinterest.com and Target dollar shopping. Both of which are GREAT resources to use for organizing.

First of all, I stocked up on Target's plastic crates (not in the dollar section, but caught them on sale for $3.00, so a bargain nonetheless). I have used them just for storage so far. They are great because you can use hanging file folders in them. But also, they fit perfectly in the shelving unit I already had and I use them to store craft items mostly. They would be great to use in the classroom for books, etc.

Here is a wonderful example I ran across on Pinterest of how a teacher turned crates into seats, so they can be used for storage as well as seating.

Also, I found some dollar deals including a mini pocket chart and some lined dry-erase board strips. I am going to use them for circle time or small groups to have the children write something on their board and then they can come up and display it in the pocket chart.

Some other uses for the mini-pocket chart I found lying around...

Dr. Suess was well-represented in the dollar section of target, from erasers to markers to silly bands to pins. None of which I bought, but I did think the vinyl bags were a great value for a dollar, so I have picked up one of each, The Cat in the Hat, Horton Hears a Who, Red Fish, Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham. These I will use to make activity bags that will include the book itself and some activities that go along with it. For additional ideas about Dr. Suess, go to Obsuessed.com.

Pinterest has given me soooo many ideas that I wanna do them all, but I know there is no possible way I can. At least not this year...  One thing I really like about it too is that the things I repin almost always lead me to new blogs. I would like to share a blog called Target Treasures, which relates back to my other newest hobby. This is a blog all about things a teacher buys at Target and uses for the classroom. Great!

Another Pinterest find I came across is Printable Labels for Book Bins. Pretty self-explanatory, but click the link to see photos and to print out the labels!