Veteran's Day!

As we all know, today is Veteran's Day...a day that I am lucky enough to celebrate with my fellow Veteran's. Some of us are not lucky enough to get to enjoy this day, as they gave the ultimate sacrifice...their lives. I pray for them and their families and all current service men and women not only today but everyday.

 I have been a kindergarten teacher for seven years now, but prior to that, I spent a little over 9 years serving our great nation. (To read my whole story click here.) I thank my family for being so supportive of me during that time. Especially my husband Sam, who had to endure the first whole year of our marriage without me! I also have to thank each and every one of my Battle Buddy's who helped me through Basic Training, AIT, and Deployment to Iraq.  Without them, I would not have made it through the ups and downs of my service. I was going trying to tag each and every one of my Veteran friends and family on Facebook today there were nearly 90 Veteran's that I can say I served with, went to school with or am related too! What an amazingly wonderful thing that Facebook has allowed me to keep in contact with them!! I thank God for putting each and every one of them in my life! And  so I say THANK YOU to them and to all Veteran's on this day!

Now on to the teacher side of things...Each year, I try to think of new ways to teach my kindergartners about Veteran's Day. Most of the time they just want to see pictures of me in uniform and my GUN! It is always about the gun with them, haha. But I love to share with them what I can about my experience as a soldier.  A few years ago, I emailed our whole district and got pictures of them or their family members who were Veteran's and I made a power point presentation with the pictures and music. I sent it out to all the teachers in the district to share with their students! What a neat thing to see how many people in just our area are affected when their loved one's deploy. I have shown this power point each year to my students and then let them share with me if they know someone who is in the military.

With the help of Debbie Clement, I came up with a few different Veteran's/Memorial day quilting ideas from her book "Red, White and Blue" (My favorite book ever!!!!!) Before I got into blogging, Debbie blogged about my first quilting project for me and you can check the strands out here. 

After that LARGE quilt, I came up with another idea for a quilt which you can find here!

I have also designed a showcase in our school that displays pictures our staff and student's loved ones who have served or are currently our country. It also has artifacts from the military, almost like a mini museum for the kiddos. And lastly, I have to thank my supportive colleagues who have turned Friday's into "Red Shirt Friday" at our school. We purchased "Red Shirt Friday, I Support Our Troops" shirts and wear them (or any form of red) to school each Friday to show our support for our troops!

Happy Veteran's Day to all the Veteran's out there. Your service, sacrifice and dedication is greatly appreciated and does not go unnoticed. THANK YOU!

The SPIDER!

So, yesterday morning as my students were doing their morning work, I was taking our moving our book-cart out into the hallway and saw a sweet little spider on the floor....and what I mean by sweet little...is A BIG BLACK SPIDER!!!!  Luckily, I was the only one who saw it so I quickly grabbed the can that was sitting on my reading table and put it over the spider. I told my kiddos that there was a can on the floor and to please just leave it there (because bless their little hearts...they are forever picking up things that are on the floor and putting them away or in the lost and found box). Then of course, I got "Why is there a can there? What is it for? Why can't we move it?" So I finally told them that there was a really big spider under the can and that I needed to find a jar to put the spider in. Well that got them all wound up and they quickly got up and wanted to see it! Such curious little kiddos...I love it! I made a promise to them that if they would please stay in their seats until I found a jar, then I would let them watch me put it in the jar. They QUICKLY sat down and waited :)

 I found the jar and collected the spider in it. I then put it on a stool in the middle of the carpet and let the kiddos check him out. They were all very excited and got their vocabulary rolling! An extension to this spontaneous little lesson would have been to have the kiddos write about it in their journals. We never did get the chance to do that, but next time it is a must!


Here is our little fella...

Needless to say our spider...whom we cleverly named "The BEAST" became the main attraction at school yesterday!

And FYI, this is the second spider of this size and that I have found in my classroom in less than a week and my friend found one that was a little smaller, in her school bag!!! Could you imagine!?!?!

September is underway!

Wow! What a crazy time of year! I cannot believe that it is already September!!! My To-Do list keeps growing! Just when I think I am caught up...I'm actually 3 steps behind! But, I do love it and wouldn't trade my crazy days for anything!

I am working on hopefully getting a TpT site up and running sometime this school year. That's the goal anyway! So hopefully you will see something from me soon. I have many super-bloggers that are here to support me when I take that giant leap for man-kind!

So tonight I just wanted to check in and see how everyone's school year is going so far?!?! What new and wonderful things have you tried so far this year that have worked? What hasn't worked? Did you start your year with a new theme? What do you start your year with?? I want to know, so please feel free to leave a comment and share with me!

I started my year off with Pete the Cat. This is the second year that I started with Pete the Cat and I can tell you that the kids LOVE Pete. They truly cannot get enough of him and BEG me to play the CD whenever they are working at their tables.

We are also working on our class names. We play the name game each day.  Soon students will  learn how to read and write all of  their friends names.

Remember when I said, just as soon as I feel like I am all caught up, I am actually 3 steps behind??? Well it is true.I am in an out of state wedding next weekend so I will be leaving on Thursday. Plus,  I just decided to change my schedule around to make a little more time for reading and writing workshop so that means I have to re-do my lesson plans and make sub-plans for next week. Then the week after...I have training for our mentor program. So I will also need to make sub plans for that week as well!   So here is what is on my To-Do list for tonight....

Start crossing things of that to-do list, grade papers and cut out BEE bucks!

Make envelopes for each child's name puzzle and name card!

Whew! That is a lot of work to get done! And who said teachers only work from 8-3p???

Classrooms Galore!

If you are like me, you are always wanting to see how other teachers set up their classrooms!

How cute is it?

 How do they fit all of their center areas in their classroom?

 What kind of chair do they sit in...a rocking chair? A wooden straight-back? A stool?

 Do students sit at desks or do they sit at tables? 

How are those desks or tables arranged?? 

How is their calendar area set up?

What type of carpet do they have?

Well Debbie Clement over at Rainbows Within Reach has graciously started a linky party so that we can see each others classrooms by blog hopping! If you have a blog that shares your classroom pictures, LINK UP!! We would love to see it!

 After you check out all of these AMAZING classroom set-ups, you MUST stop over and read Debbie's blog...she tells a very heartfelt story of a fellow educator that truly will bring tears to your eyes and remind you why we teach! Click here to read this wonderful story!

My room is complete! Finally!

Well today was the first official day back to school for teachers. Students come on Wednesday. I have been working in my classroom for a week now, cleaning out cupboards, re-organizing, pitching old things, and so much more! I felt so rushed to get everything done because I wanted my room to be put together before students or parents came in and today, we had our district wide meetings until 11:15am and then had beginning of the year conferences with parents starting at noon. We have these parent conferences to get out some important information that they will need to know prior to their child's first day. I also got a chance to meet the kiddos today! I can't wait to spend the day with them Wednesday! They seem like a great group of kinders!

So as I promised, I will show you pictures from my classroom! The finished product! 

 Enjoy the tour of my kindergarten classroom!

 

My theme this year is NIU Huskies! My Alma mater and a team that my husband and I follow to home and away games each year! (Looking forward to September 1, the first game of the season vs. Iowa Hawkeyes.)

But I don't stop at my favorite college team, I have to represent a few of my favorite teams! The Chicago Cubs, Buffalo Bills, and of course Team USA! 

Below you will see some of my centers. Top-left is my writing center. (You may notice the table is low to the ground so students can sit on the floor with carpet squares). They love it! Top-right is my poetry center. Bottom-left you will see my manipulative/toy shelves for choice time and math centers. And bottom-right is my library center.

Our school rules are Be Ready, Be Safe, and Be Kind. So, I have worker Bee's to help us to follow those rules and complete class jobs. Hanging on the file cabinet is our lunch count pocket chart. You also see our class computers and my guided reading table.

 Below you will find our "Bee Buck" can, decorated by previous students. When students are seen or heard being ready, safe, or kind, they receive a Bee Buck. They write their name on it and put it in the can. At the end of each week a winner is randomly drawn out. Their name is announced during Friday morning announcements and they get to go chose a prize from the office. The Beanie Babies that you see there, are actually my bathroom passes. Monkey is for the girls and Tiger is for the boys. when a child has to go to the bathroom, they put the pass at their seat and go. This way, I can see who is gone and know where they are. After the first few weeks of school, everyone is very good about only using the passes when they need them!

Here are some more views of my classroom and how it is set up! (Yes, those are my shoes...had to take them off after school today because my feet were killing me) :) 

Last but not least, I had to share my favorite tape! The tape that holds everything up! It's our ACE Hardware tape! For the last few years, each masking tape that our school has bought has not held anything. We would tape up our locker tags or art projects and the next morning everything would be on the floor! But with this wonderful tape, I never have that problem! 

I hope you enjoyed your tour of my classroom and maybe it even gave you some new ideas! To see a little bit more of my classroom and some of my organizing tips check out my post at Pre-K and K Sharing from this month! 

Happy Beginning of the School year!

 

Still working on my classroom!

So this week was my first chance to get in my classroom! Usually it doesn't take me the WHOLE WEEK but, I decided to clean out my cupboards (which took almost a whole day just in itself)! It was one of those things that I just NEEDED to do! My cupboards still had things in them from the teacher before me who retired 7 years ago! I kept some of it because I "THOUGHT" I would use it, when I knew down deep inside that I wouldn't. So it was time!

I ended up taking four small cart loads of stuff to the end of our hallway to the "One mans trash is another man's treasure" pile that we have every year! I also gave about four cart loads to my cousin who just graduated in May with her Early Childhood degree. And I am happy to say that she just got hired on as our new Title I Reading aide for the year! (We have a kindergarten teacher retiring next year so I am hoping that she is hired for that position but if not, I am still happy that she got a job in the school).

Another reason it is taking me so long is because I can't stop talking to everyone else in the building! I feel just like the kids do when they come back to school...haven't seen some of my friends all summer and all I want to do is talk and catch up!

But I have gotten a lot done and will continue to work today and tomorrow. I even have a parent meeting already tomorrow! So I want my room to be ready to go for that! Our first official day back is Monday the 20th and kiddo's come Wednesday the 22nd! Ahh!

 I hope those of you who have started already are surviving and I hope that those of you who haven't started get everything done in time and with minimal stress :)

So far so good! I will share more pictures later! 

It's a bloghop Linky Pinterest Party!

My dear friend Debbie Clement over at Rainbows Within Reach has decided to host a linky party for Pinterest lovers! A great place to find several educational Pinterest pages or boards! Please link your educational blog below! Or click on the picture of Debbie and I for her post that goes into a little more detail! Remember...you don't have to be a blogger, you don't have to have your own special teacher Pinterest page...all you need it to link to your personal Pinterest educational boards!
                                                 

ENJOY!

Love her! 

Happy pinning and happy blogging!