Welcome Back!

I know it is that time again because I have been relaxing on the couch all day. This is unheard of in my house on a Saturday! Usually I spend this day running, cooking, cleaning, and doing anything I can think of not to sit still. The best part is the students haven't even started yet! This year we wanted to revamp a few areas in the classroom and make it even more colorful and bright and I am pretty happy with how everything turned out. Most of my pictures are pretty blurry, but in my defense I took them on Friday after cutting, cleaning, and crafting all week. Plus my phone is a cracked piece of junk and only had 12% charge. If I am a good girl I am hoping Santa will bring me a new camera for Christmas (Hint Hint Brent!) I will try to take some better pictures on Monday after the kiddos leave for their half day. 

Let's begin our classroom tour where the children begin their day. Nothing much changed with our classroom door this year because we love our cute little owl theme and 

4K really is a Hoot!

We added some cute blue border around our Star Of The Week door to add a little pop of color. I can't wait to start displaying our kiddo's posters each week. 

One of the biggest changes we made to our decor was revamping this wall to the right of the classroom door. 

We redid our classroom schedule to include some of our new classroom activities like morning journals and word work/sight word time. I found this free printable which helped make things so much easier in this weary time crunched teacher. It didn't include exactly every single thing I needed so I am still working on a few pieces for our morning work time and our word work time. 

Right next to our schedule is a little dry erase board I painted a pretty blue color. This will be for us teachers to use to write reminders before the students leave each day. 

Another big change was to our sign in chart. This is a wonderful visual for is to see who is and isn't at school and it also helps when we have students pulled from the classroom for different activities like playing and working in the angel classroom. I am actually going to change the bottom  space to something other than "Angel Room" because we have a few friends who attend other activities so I would like it to be a more general label so I know who is where at all times. When the students enter the classroom they will find the clip with their name on it and move it to the green square labeled "In". After they use the potty after lunchtime they will move their clip back to the "Out" space. This helps is keep track of who has and hasn't used to restroom which is very useful when you are trying to clean up after lunch while answering 22 individual questions am requests while also trying to make sure you have eyes on all 22 babies at all times!

I already had this dismissal sign we just moved it from another area of the room. This helps us have a visual of where each student needs to go t the end of everyday which can be quite the task!!

I also already had this cute little behavior clip chart. 

I had these cute classroom rules signs but I never got around to hanging them up last year so I was determined to make it happen this time around. 

My newest addition came from an impulse but during a dollar tree visit to buy up all of their clothespins. He is so cute and I love him. We need to come up with a good name for our new classroom mascot. 

I have been collecting these cute and colorful motivational signs for a while now. They were all free which makes them even more cute! 

Another one of our newest additions is our "Look What We're Learning" focus board. I used this board for almost the same purposes before, now we just have a little more info. 

We of course have our calendar and right next to that is a place for directions for all of our activities. 

The next space is where we will place the letter, number, shape, and sight words we are learning about. 

The last two spots are where I will display what our morning activity will be (journals, letter craft, letter person puppet craft, table toys, etc.) and next to that is the board we use to rotate our afternoon jobs. Incase you are wondering what Jobs are they are differentactivities the   students complete like math activities, alphabet recognition, writing activities, etc. 

It doesn't look like it would cause full body exhaustion, but this cute little classroom wears me out each and ever year!! Add in some lesson plan prep and I am sleeping like a baby every night! 

I can officially say without a doubt that we are ready for the 2014-2015 school year!!!

Calling It A Win

The first week of school is over and looking back I am calling it a big ole win! I feel like we are already settling into a groove and everyone seems to already have a hang of our routine. I might or might not have passed out at 8:04 according to my husband Friday evening, but what do you expect from working your buns off after a summer of leisure. 

We started our week with 3 half days with 6 babies Monday and Tuesday and the last 8 on Wednesday. I loved getting a chance to get to know all of our babies and we had so much fun learning all about our classroom and our school. 

We played a few get to know you games like 

I made my own Cookie Jar game a few years ago and we have used it every year to get to know our friends a little better. I have always used an empty plastic coffee canister as my cookie jar and our cookies are just brown circles with each students name on it. We sing the song and as I pull out each cookie I like to see if my friends can recognize their names so they can come up and get their cookie. It is so much fun and a great ice breaker to get a few giggles out of my friends who might be a little more shy. I am loving these printables from Mrs. Gilchrist's Class  and will definitely be using them next year when I am getting to know my next crop of babies. 

After we learned everyone's names we played Roll a Name where each student got a turn to roll a big bouncy ball to a friend, but before they roll they have to say who they were going to roll the ball to or they could ask the friend their name if they couldn't remember it. After each student got a turn I went around the circle and lightly bounced the ball on each babies head which got the biggest giggles while the rest of the students called out that friends name. 

One of my favorite things we do for the first week of school is read The Kissing Hand

I used to borrow my mother in laws Chester puppet and I even thought about buying my own little raccoon. Sadly I just couldn't justify spending $30-$40 on a puppet so last year I decided to make my own Chester out of felt and I am pretty happy with how he turned out. 

If you have never read this story before I highly recommend it as a back to school read for little ones. The Kissing Hand is a story about a little raccoon named Chester who is scared and doesn't want to go to school, but his mom tells him the secret of the kissing hand. As a mom I am already getting a little emotional about the thought of my girl going to school for the first time next year and I know many of our parents feel the same way about sending their babies off even if it isn't for the first time. Hopefully we can help make the transition easier for everyone and one way we do that is with COOKIES! 

Get it? Kissing Hands!

After enjoying our tasty treat we made a little something to take home to share with mom and dad. I of course forgot to take a picture of our hand prints and we never got a chance to glue the hearts into the palms, but it still turned out as a pretty cute craft. I had each student draw their first day of school on the blank piece of white paper glued to each page. 

 Sadly there is no source for this project. I have it pinned on Pinterest, but the link goes nowhere.

I felt like everyone had fun the first few days of school, but I was ready to get our first full day started and get all 20 babies in the room and get any kinks worked out with our schedule. I have to say we all did a pretty great job on our first 2 full days! Mrs. Douglas is amazing and I know she is sick of me thanking her for being my amazing backup. She cleans up after me, thinks of things I always forget, puts up with my crazy, and just plain ole rocks! We work pretty well together and that just makes everything run like a well oiled machine. Like I always say a busy baby is a happy baby so that is what we do. We try to limit down time as much as possible and we keep everyone busy with fun books, songs, and activities.

Thankfully we didn't just eat cookies all week we actually did a little work too. 

On our first full day Thursday I wanted to really settle into helping our friends make good choices and we talked about being a Bucket Filler and A Bucket Dipper. I found this cute way of explaining making good choices and not good choices on Pinterest of course. After reading Have You Filled A Bucket Today? each student got a turn to tell me either a Bucket Filler or a Bucket Dipper and we wrote them on a happy and a sad bucket. This year instead of earning tokens to fill our cups we are earning sticks to fill our buckets which they can do by keeping their clips on our happy colors on our Cool Colors Clip Chart. 

I was very excited that a few friends already moved their clips up to blue and purple! 

After rereading The Kissing Hand again with all of our friends we made our own Chesters as our very first project of the school year.

On Friday we continued talking about making good choices by reading The Peace Book and learning about our Peace Table. This is where friends will go to work out any issues and sit when they need a moment to calm down. After we read our book we made our own Peace Chesters using hearts. 

After working so hard I decided we needed one more special treat for our first week of school so as our friends were finishing up their Peace Chesters each student got to put together their Recipe for a Successful School Year and then we had to eat it of course

Enjoying our special recipe

Later in the afternoon we made Friendship Necklaces, crowns, bracelets, etc. by lacing colored pasta, which the Little Lady (my little girl) and I had so much fun making the night before, onto pipe cleaners. 

I loved both of these projects and we will be doing them every year from now on! 

I am so so so happy with our first week of school and I can not wait to see how much our friends enjoy everything we have planned for All About Me week next week! 

Ready, Steady, Go!

I still have a few things to cut out, but as of 4:30 Friday afternoon I can say we are ready to roll come Monday morning. We made it (barely) through parent orientation and I apologize to all of my super sweet parents for being so nervous! I can talk all day to 20 four year olds, but put me in front of a bunch of grownups and I become a babbling idiot. I know I forgot to tell them a million things, but hopefully the packet covered everything I missed.

Now enough of me being a complete spaz and onto the fun stuff! Decorations!

We have worked our booties off these past few days, but it was 100% worth it and I love how everything turned out. Somehow our polka dot theme turned into an owl theme which was completely unplanned, but I am really loving our "4k Is A Hoot" theme.  

Our classroom door

Since I go by Mrs. Roxanne and not Mrs. Doyle I decided to make a little door sign. 

Our Where We Are sign  incase anyone needs to find our class they can find us 

My view from my desk. The student tables and our peace table which will be an all purpose table for crafts, experiments, but it's main use will be for friends to sit and work out any issues and it will also be a place friends can go sit when they need a few minutes to chill out and calm down.

Our new behavior buckets. Instead of earning poker chips or tokens as we call them we will be using what we are calling "Buckets." Depending on what color each students ends they day on our Cool Colors Clip Chart they will earn sticks to place in their buckets. After earning 15-20 sticks (we haven't decided the actual number yet) students will be able to choose a treat from out treat box. ON the first day of school we will all work together to decided how to be a Bucket Filler and not a Bucket Dipper. 

Our soon to be Word Wall. These letters will hang from hooks on the wall and the words and pictures that go with each letter will be attached by a ring. The students will be able to take the letters and words down and use them to play, write, etc. They will also be able to put the letters in ABC order.

 

My desk and our Sensory Center. This center will not be open the first week of school to allow for students to become acclimated to centers because this one can get a bit messy. This center will be changed out as we go through the school year. 

My chair, our Hoot Owl, All of my "Teacher Stuff", and our classroom calendar.

The pan will be our Brownie Points which is how our class works together to earn their compliment parties (pajama party, dance party, movie party, etc.), Our Work Directions, Job Rotations, and How We Go Home display.

Soon to be our 100 Day Gumball Machine, Cool Colors Clip Behavior Chart, Sign In clips, and soon we will have our Class Rules hanging here. 

Line Up Feet

A View from the Door. 

Our other themes this year besides A ton of Polka Dots our super cute Owls are 

Be Organized and to Have As Much Fun As Possible! 

I have a feeling this is going to be a GREAT year! I can't wait to meet the rest of our babies and get started having some fun! 

Wish us luck this next week!! We'll need it!!

Welcome To Preschool and The Kissing Hand

I am pretty pumped! I have completed my first 2 lesson plans and am currently working on week 3's lesson plan! I hadn't really gotten the hang of making up my lessons last school year whilst adding in Jobs (more on those later) so I wasn't exactly happy with my first few lessons which is why I am redoing a few things. 

I can't wait to share! 

Our first 3 days of school in preschool are staggered days meaning only a few students will attend school each day and they will leave at 11:30 each day meaning we will be doing the exact same lesson 3 days in a row. Easy Peezy Lemon Squeezy in the words of a little friend from last year!

We will start our week by reading The Kissing Hand. Last year I wanted to get a Chester puppet, but couldn't justify spending $30-$40 for a raccoon puppet so I decided to make my own. I think he is even cuter then the original. He is od course made out of my favorite craft medium felt. 

After reading the story each student will draw a picture of what they think their first day of school will be like. While the students are coloring Mrs. Ann and I will paint each students hand to add to their picture later. 

I pinned this from Pinterest and of course the link led to nowhere so I can't give anyone credit which is sad. If anyone know where this idea comes from please let me know. 

What's the first week of school without a special treat and what's more special then  a hand cookie with a Hershey's kiss in the middle except this year I might switch the kiss for a red iced heart. I pinned this Pin, but this is not where I originally came up with the idea. I have actually been doing this Lesson for years now and have always given my students little hand cookies. Maybe I am the original person who came up with this idea!  I always wonder about all of the lessons and crafts that get passed around from teacher to teacher. I wonder how many people who are selling all of their ideas actually came up with those ideas. Thankfully for me there are super duper smart people coming up with so many amazing ideas because I sure as heck couldn't come up with all of the amazing ideas I use!

We will make a hand anchor chart to record each student's first day of school feelings 

We will make a few Chester crafts 

source

source

I thought it would be fun at the end of the week to make Friendship necklaces.

On Friday I will have the student follow our recipe for a successful year to enjoy at snack time after P.E.

So there you have it. Our first week in a nut shell. 

I am so excited to get started and get to know all of the little poeple I will spend the next 180 days with!

-Love Roxanne

Best Layed Plans

I will be organized!  I will be organized!  I will be organized!  I will be organized!  I will be organized! 

I WILL BE ORGANIZED!!!!

Are you noticing a theme here? 

My goal this year is to be super duper organized! Even more so then last year. I will not let a lack of storage space get in my way and I will not stack papers to be forgotten! Least year I was really organizes when it came to my lesson planning. I was always at least a week to 2 weeks ahead with everything by implementing what we call "Jobs". Mrs. Nicole my fellow 4K teacher used this technique in her classroom , but I only really discovered how it worked last year. Basically Jobs are 4 or 5 weekly rotating activities and skills that each student completes. I will do a full post a little later with pictures so you can get a good idea of how they work and rotate. I spent each week last year putting together the next weeks lesson and jobs which was a lot of work but totally worth it. That means this year everything is completed and ready to go. That is unless I want to change something which I know I will do because some activities didn't work as well as I had hoped and others i will probably add more to. The good thing is the majority of my work is done which is huge! You may not think teaching preschool is a lot of work, but I dare anyone to come do what I do for 1 week then come talk to me! most people would probably run out the door screaming and crying! I still have a lot of work to do, just not as much. 

I have already started my pre planning process by mapping out our entire year in my calendar (Don't be fooled into buying a "Teacher" planner which will run you close to $15. I snagged this calendar that can go into my Teacher Keeper in the student section for $5!) I already know when I will start my assessments and when we will start all of our big projects for holidays like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Mother's Day. I always feel like I am scrambling to get these projects complete so I want them done weeks ahead of time to be sent home. I don't want any surprises this year. I want to be ready for anything the world can throw at me! Preparation is a teacher's best weapon.

Speaking of being organized I am also planning on shaking things up with our centers. I am moving things around and I have big plans for changing out some of our centers throughout the year according to the seasons and our themes. One major change I am going to test out this year is having a mobile writing center. Instead of having a table for the children to sit at I will use lap desks and the floor to allow for more freedom for those students who need a different writing environment. 

Here is a link to The Good Life from last year and our classroom setup. A lot will be changing and I can't wait to document it all right here. 

For reference here is a look back at what my classroom looked like at the end of last year after everything was put away for summer camp.

I hope everyone enjoys there last few weeks of summer break and for my friends starting at the beginning of August I will soon be joining you and good luck on your first days.

-Love Roxanne

Double Duty

Welcome to my newest piece of real estate in the blogasphere!!

 I have decided to split up my blogging between my personal blogging and my school blogging. Things were just getting to jumbled up  over at The Good Life and I figured since there were so many other changes happening in my school life that I may as well give it it's own little space to shine.

One of the biggest changes some of you may not know about is my change in teaching partners. Last year my friend and co teacher Cathy was sadly leaving our happy little classroom to fulfill her dream of teaching in our ANGEL program. We had cried and laughed and hugged a million times and promised to still have inappropriate nap time conversations about her wild side back in the day. I had come to terms with my friend transferring classrooms and even though she was leaving me I still loved her. Sadly before she got a chance to fulfill her dream she was taken from us very quickly and suddenly. I will never forget that day and I will never forget my friend. I am still having a difficult time dealing with this loss and it weighs heavy on my heart everyday. I am so thankful to my family especially my school and church family for helping me get through such a difficult time.

Through out this difficult time in my life and teaching career a little blond ray of sunshine named Ann was thrown into my life and she helped pull me back from the brink of insanity. Poor sweet Ann showed up ready to help and help she did. She was my counselor, my shoulder, my co teacher and so much more. Thankfully for her we finished up the school year strong and then the waiting started. I never wanted to make Ann uncomfortable because I had no clue who would be working with me the next school year. I knew that I would have a new partner in crime because Cathy was moving classes I just had no clue who it would be, but I prayed every night that it would be Ann. One day after an extremely emotional chat with my assistant principal I just threw it out there that if anyone came into my classroom I wanted it to be Ann. Right at that moment Mr. Mullis our principal walked in and Ann (our assistant principal not Ann my co teacher) told him what I had said and they just laughed and played it off. Little did I know they had already had the same idea from the beginning. So we waited and wondered until the last day of school when we got the good news. Ann and I would be teaching together next year!!!! I think from the moment they asked Cathy if she wanted the ANGEL position they already had Ann in mind.

Now begins my internal battle with my brain. I am still reeling from the loss of my friend, but I am so so excited about working with Ann. I know once we get back to school my anxiety will pass and my babies will keep me so busy that I won't even have time to dwell. 

I am so happy and so excited about what the future holds and now I have a new place to share it. I will probably mostly post from my phone because I can snap quick picture and write a short blurb about our daily activities. My goal this year is to be more organized and prepared then ever and to teach my teacher to my fullest potential. I am so glad I spent so much time working on my lessons because that means this year I can tweak those things that need tweaking and spend the majority of my time tootie tahing with my friends. If you don't know what the Tootie Tah is I will take a video of it some day to share.

I am so excited about this school year!  We will be busy, but we will have fun!
I am already working on my Parent Orientation power point and my lesson plan for the first week is almost complete.

I leave you now with a few pictures so you can get a feel for what will go on around here.

 Sniffing hand lotion at naptime to combat the baby farts

 I miss you my dear friend. You will forever be in my heart and I know you will be there with us August 19 and everyday after. I can't wait to look outside my window each day and see your tree looking back at me. I hope it has blooms this spring.

Sadly she knows what she is getting herself into and she is still sticking around. You are an amazing person, friend, and teacher! I can not wait to teach with you Mrs. Ann! We are going to have an AMAZING year!

And last, but not least I am thinking about adding this into my Parent Orientation power point for an ice breaker. I think it will get a good laugh since I have already had half of parents in my class before.

Don't forget a bottle of wine and a cupcake (in my case a gluten free cupcake) 

at the end of the day makes everything better.