My 2016-2017 "SUPER" Classroom

It has been a great summer!  It was a good mix of relaxing, fun, and memorable.  Now it is August, and in less than 2 weeks my little Kinders will be entering their classroom for the first time.  I strive to make my classroom inviting, fun, organized, functional, the whole deal really.  :)  I am not 100% finished, but have put it together enough that the parents of my class can show their kiddos their upcoming classroom for the school year.  Before I start, I always like to start with a "before" picture to see how far it's come.  So here was my room when I walked in one day in late July.  

The theme we chose this year was Superheroes.  Not only because we feel the kids are excited about superheroes at the age of 5 and 6, but we also wanted to tie in that Jesus is our hero.  I absolutely love that I teach at a Catholic school where I can incorporate our faith into our day to day.  So the first thing I did to my classroom was work on this focus wall in my classroom.

Our class rules are based on one simple word:  Respect.  In my classroom, I expect my students to respect themselves, others, and our school.  

They can get caught being "Super."  When they are caught they get to wear a cape all day as well as what badge applies to what they did.  Ex:  super helper, super friend, super listener, etc.  I had my "helpers" with me today, and they modeled some capes for me.  :)   

We will also have a Star Student every week until everyone gets a turn.  The star student gets to have special, fun privledges all week long.  The star student schedule and daily activities will be on this blog under "Parent Korner" soon.  

One day, your child will get to sit at the "Super Seat."  This is a special desk where he/she can sit and wear shades, etc.  

Our group area is a very important area in our classroom.  This is where we talk/discuss whole group and where we read stories, work on special skills, and so on.  Having a focus wall near it, has been very beneficial in the past, so I wanted to keep that there this year as well.  

I love the black with the bright colors, so even though our theme is superheroes, which is usually primary colors, I tried to keep it bright and black colors.  

This year I also wanted to incorporate some alternative seating in my classroom.  There are several great articles out there on alternative seating and its advantages when available in the classrooms.  You can just google it if you'd like to read some of those articles.  Here are my cute little models again.  :)

The next area I worked on was the prayer area.  I used one of our bulletin boards for an area that we can post prayer requests on.  In addition I have a World Peace Prayer, that I plan to say daily with the class, and have a table that I painted this summer to match, where I added some of my favorite verses for kids in the colorful frames I had.  I also will have our religious books there for the kids to have easy access to.

Here are some other various pictures of the classroom.  I hope you all enjoyed and that some of the kiddos were able to see before Open House.  

I am looking forward to the school year ahead of us!  It's a special year because I already know many of the kids with my son, Gabe having been in preschool with some of them, and now he's entering Kindergarten as well.  I am pretty sure I'm known to most of these kids as "Gabe's Mommy."  :)  I love it!  Hopefully, they will feel more comfortable as they enter the school year.  We are going to have a lot of fun, learn a lot, and make a lot of memories along the way.  

  

So What Does a Teacher do on Summer Vacation?

For those inquiring minds that want to know...I can't speak for all teachers, but I'd be happy to give you some insight on how *this* teacher spends her Summer Break.  First, every summer is different.  A few years ago, I was in full "baby mode" with an infant and 2 other kids in tow.  I didn't do much but tend to their needs, and try and catch 20 min of sleep here and there when I could.  There was another summer when I decided my classroom needed a makeover.  (and it did), but I painted bookshelves, and worked non stop on creating items for my room,  and felt like I spent the entire summer working on school related materials.  The older I get, I value the importance of balance in all things.  This applies to how I try to handle these summer breaks as well.  It is a time to recharge, to relax, to enjoy my family time, and I need to carefully balance that with working on school things as well--which in the end always makes the following school year run a lot smoother and I end up thanking myself for taking the time to work on that while I had the extra time.  Balance.  

So, let's start with the fun stuff.  First 2 weeks after school, did not TOUCH, think, create, plan, anything school related.  I took the time to get my house in order, go on day trips with the kids before all of the other school's got out as well.  We were busy, but fun-busy!  

What is summer without swimming?  One of our favorite things to do is to go to Hurricane Harbor at Six Flags.  

What is a trip to Six Flags without some dry rides as well?  

Do I look less than thrilled?  This girl has an unhealthy fear of heights.  Colossus--not a big fan!

Well this one--not so dry

We also went bowling, visited Grant's Farm, went to the park, the movies, all in our first couple weeks.  I made this chart after a friend was talking about how she did this last summer.  

 We have filled it much more now, but this way when the kids tell me how bored they are--I'm just going to point them toward our poster.  

I have read books in my time off, have plans to paint rooms and cabinets, organized, organized, organized.  

I love Contemporary Christian & Country music.  By default, I think my kids do now too.  I took them to their first concert the other night..Chris Tomlin, a Christian singer.  They loved it!  

Summer is also my time to catch up on my photo books.  I create a photo book for the entire year, so 2015 has it's own book of everything that happened that year, etc.  I am still a scrapbooker at heart, but just do not have the time anymore, so I do it digitally.  

Basically, I've been relaxing, and also catching up on things that have been on my "to do list" but never had the time to do.  I feel productive.  It has not been all play, though.  Like I said, I like to work on school work periodically, to make my life easier when the school year starts.  I take some time when wrapping up the school year to sit down and reflect on that year--what worked well, what needs some tweaking, what needs to be completely redone?  

First off, our theme next year is superhero, so I've been creating some things on my computer for the classroom and the new theme.  Any parents who have had me as their child's teacher, probably knows, I am a clip art addict.  If a paper doesn't have cute clip art, it drives me crazy!!!  I'm a mess.  

I also worked on some Religion packets.  We like to introduce several bible stories throughout the year, but I was finding it so hard to find those at an Early Childhood level.  So, I made my own.  :)  

After finding and purchasing some really cute clip art, of course.  The link to my TPT store  is under each, in case you are a Catholic School Educator or a Homeschool parent, Sunday School worker, who could benefit from any of these packets.  

Mini booklets for Creation story

Full page books for Creation story

Creation wheel

  

You can find this packet for at 

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Story-of-Creation-2585464

I worked on the story of Adam and Eve as well.  

Full page story

Story Mapping--matching

Creative writing/drawing

(I have not posted the product listing on TPT yet, because I am waiting to complete, take pictures of the art project portion of this packet.  It should be complete by Friday.)

We also talk about the children's sacrament of Baptism.  I could never find what I was looking for for more resources, so I just decided to make my own.  

You can find this in my TPT store here:

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/All-About-My-Baptism-2585674

In other areas, I created our behavior calendars for the year, my newsletters (complete with seasonal clip art :) ) for the year, and some headings for each subject on our focus wall.  

See?  Balance.  :)  And I take next week completely off because we are traveling to my happy place...the beach!  

The packing begins

As always, thanks for stopping by.  Enjoy your week!

End of the School Year

Dear parents of my 2015-2016 class, ugh, what can I say? I'm a slacker.  Sooooo sorry, I have not posted anything since mid-March!?!?!?  Yikes.
Let me make up for it by posting a bunch of pictures from March on.  Here are some random pictures of things we had worked on.  In Math we started our shape study--2D and 3D shapes.  For 2D shapes we made "Shape People", and filled in properties for each different shape--how many sides and vertices--the students were so impressed to use such a big math word as "vertices."

In April we took our field trip to Grant's Farm & Suson Park, here are some snapshots:

Our Dinosaur unit proved to be one of their all time favorite themes to study.

making _at words

real vs nonsense words

And here is our 2015-2016 graduating Kindergarten class:

I hope you are all having a great summer!!  I miss these kiddos!  I got my first letter in the mail the other day(so sweet, I love it)--Keep em' coming!  :)