Five for Fraturday and I Survived!

So we had our first week back to school this week and this was my song…

I will survive

Oh as long as I know how to love

I know I’ll stay alive

I’ve got all my life to live

I’ve got all my love to give and I’ll survive

I will survive! Hey! Hey!

Yes, I did survive this week and I do love my new little’s already. Yes, your welcome you will have that song in your head all day now…lol.

I am linking up with doodle bugs for Five for Fraturday and to give you a peek at our week.

We started off with Back to School/Meet the Teacher.  If you haven’t started yet, go get The Ultimate Open House Scavenger Hunt Pack by KimAdsit.  It literally has everything you need to be successful.  It is full of fantastic Ideas. She has station suggestions, a family project, gift idea and much more.

Sorry, I was so busy meeting families, I didn’t get pictures of everything.  But Kim goes into detail on her blog, Kindergals, so be sure to check it out. It was a huge hit with my families and kiddos.  

Especially her idea to take a picture of each child by themselves and with their family.  You should have seen how excited some of my families were to take a picture together.  I am then going to make each child a page with their pics to hang on our “quit” display. I’ll post a pic once it is complete.

She also gave a super cute idea to ask for class donations.  I teach in a school that is 95% free and reduced lunch and thought never in a million years would any tags be taken, but I figured what could it hurt.  I was shocked when more tags were gone than families that had attended.  I had one parent even ask, How many can we take?  So the moral is, you just never know, you might as well give it a try.

Our first day of school was tons of fun.  I made this little frame for all the kiddos to take a pic in.  They were beaming. 

 We started learning our classroom rules, got to know each other, read some stories and did a little work too! To end the day we made these super cute First Day Crowns and certificates from Crystal McGinnis, it’s a freebie so go grab it.  They loved being “Kings” and “Queens”.

We also made this precious First Day Flap book from Page & Cristy at Kindergarten Squared. It is so cute and the kiddos really loved putting it together.

It gave them fine motor practice with cutting and drawing while still having fun and they were so excited to be able to take it home and “read” it to their families.  A wonderful keepsake!  I wish I would have had something like this when my boys were in kindergarten.

Well, 2^nd day of school and it was time to get down to business.  We talked about our focus wall and how each week we will be focusing on several different skills/concepts that we need to master. 

 We also talked about each week we will have objectives we are working on.  We started learning 2 of our Whole brain teaching strategies to keep learning engaging and fun too!

For our letters of the week we made circle maps.  The RULES are NO laughing at Mrs. D’s drawings…that goes for you too!! I am not an artist…quite clearly.  But, the students had a great time coming up with words that start with our focus letters of the week.  We did one on Tuesday and one on Thursday.

Each week we have a poem of the week.  DeeDee Wills, from Mrs. WillsKindergarten, has the most fantastic poetry units. My kiddos just loved them last year and this year is already no different.  We go over it each day, sing the song that goes with it. 

Put it in our Poetry journal and several other activities which build various important phonics skills.  

I was super impressed with this being only our first week and only 4 days of practice that about 1/3 of my kiddos could already say the poem by memory on Friday. 

Each week we construct an Anchor chart of our Number of the week.  This is another wonderful concept from Kim Adsit.  Last year these made a huge difference with my students and their number sense.

Of course it wasn’t all work the rest of the week, we did still manage to squeeze in some fun too!

Well I did survive this first week so I figured I needed a gift to me.  If you remember last month I shared that I had gotten an Eric Condren Life Planner that I love.  The only downside was, it wouldn’t fit in my current purse.  So I decided to treat myself to a new bag.

Ta Da!  I just love it!  My planner, iPad and all other essentials fit perfectly!

I know this post turned into a mini novel as usual…lol.  I am waiting on a few more supplies for my room…I know, I know, school has already started.  We got a new Superintendent/Principal and a new financial secretary this summer so we are a little behind on getting all of our supplies.

As soon as I get them I will be posting the reveal pics of my classroom.  I am really going to love it and I hope you do too!

I love reading your comments so let me know how your back to school was or when you do go back if you are still enjoying your summer. Thanks for stopping by and be sure to check out Doodle Bugs to see everybody’s Five for Friday!

~Laura