Has it really only been four days?

Has it really only been four days since the kids came back??? I am exhausted!  I am teaching first grade again this year (yay!), Allison looped to kindergarten with her pre-kers from last year (lucky), and my sweet mom is braving pre-k for the first time (I know I could never do it).  Needless to say, bed time has come a lot earlier than any of us would like to admit this week.

I thought I would share a few pictures from our first few days.  I wish I had more, but I am struggling to remember to get out the camera...I need to get back in the habit.

First of all, I like to start the year off with an idea from Debbie Miller's Reading with Meaning book.  My entire grade level read this book a couple of years ago and we have integrated a lot of her ideas, but this is my favorite:

We generate a list of ideas as a class and then I incorporate the list into a little promise.  The kids then make self portraits and sign their name as a way of saying that "they promise."

Next, I have some pictures of a little math activity that I do every year during the first week.  I like to start the year by building number sense and working with a number line...so why not include a little art project?!

Here we are making number posters to hang in our classroom.  You can tell, right?  Ha!  We voted as a class to make bumblebees this year (at this point they are just yellow circles with a black head).  Each kid made some and then they had to come and place them on our number cards...the "1" card has one bee, "2" has two, all of the way to "25" (this is a great way for them to see the difference in numbers and it also guarantees that we make enough).  I take the bees and glue them on white paper with the corresponding number and number word...we add a few stripes and some wings, laminate, and voila!...a beautiful kid-created number wall for your classroom (I will post pictures of the finished product asap!).

We have also been doing a little "Number of the Day" practice.  Each student has a spiral bound notebook (cut in half) that they use every morning as part of their morning work.  They have to represent "Today's Number (the number of days we have been in school) in at least five different ways.  They start off the year with the number word, dots, etc, and they end the year doing some serious algebra...I kid you not.  Here are a few of my kids sharing what they came up with.

I'll be back with more pictures soon!

We're Baaaack!

Well...we are home from vacation :(  Vacation always seems like it is going to last forever...but then it flies by so fast that you would swear that someone is playing an evil trick on you.  Anyway, we had a blast in Disney World.  We went mainly to golf (which was fun, but slightly embarrassing for us beginners), but we did manage to squeeze in a park or two.

Here is the new friend that we met at Animal Kingdom.  He came right up to my dad (who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and he just happened to be wearing a yellow shirt that day...we decided that the giraffe thought he was a new addition to the park...hehe).

The fun did not stop there..oh no...that night as we were all snuggled up watching The Real Housewives of New Jersey (my addiction), the fire alarm in the hotel went off.  Being the good teachers that we are, we all exited the building quickly and calmly (and looking like a hot mess).  We hung out in the rain for a while and when we finally got the go-ahead to re-enter our rooms I decided to ask the nice young man working what had happened.  He answered "fire alarm."  Thanks for clearing that up.

Later that week (between golf outings), we ate in Canada! Not the real Canada, unfortunately, but the one in EPCOT was quite delicious.

Here are some other pictures from the trip.  With three girls in the family, these are the only ones that got the approval for the blog :)

In the midst of all this fun we have even managed to get something new posted on Teachers Pay Teachers!  I don't know about you, but we always decide to change things up in our respective rooms year after year...and this usually means spending a small (or not so small) fortune at the teacher's store.  With this running through our minds, we decided to make our own back to school pack that includes some of those things that we buy every year at a fraction of the price.  Soooo...here is is:

Included in this pack you will find a classroom alphabet, a classroom number line (0-25 with a choice of tally marks or dots), meet the teacher goodies, "How am I going home?" book bag tags, "Ask me what I learned today!" tags, name plates, and much more!  Whew...111 pages of back to school goodness!

We have a few other things up our sleeves for the beginning of the school year and here is a little hint:

I am SOOO EXCITED about this one!!  I can't wait to get it finished!

I hope that you continue to have a restful summer.

School's Out For Summer!!

Woo Hoo!  We are out for summer!  I am so happy because this is the first year that I can honestly say that I NEED a break.  We will be heading to Florida in a few days, but we have been working to get some things finished up before then.  Soooo...here it is:

A really awesome beginning of the year unit that incorporates the popular "All about Me" theme with the Summer Olympics.  This unit has EVERYTHING!  Games, student booklets, reading and math activities, social studies, science, health, and four fabulous crafts! Amazing, if I do say so myself...I can't wait to use it :)

I will post pics from our vacation soon.  Have a great break!