Meet & Greet!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately! This last week has been a whirlwind of crazy! Thursday was the first day of school and we had Meet & Greet on Tuesday. It was a lot of fun. I had to make sure all of the things I worked on this summer were ready.

Here are some photos of my room for the lovely occasion. :)

I definitely am lucky that so many great ideas are floating around on the internet from seasoned teachers. All of their advice and ideas on Pinterest and blogs helped me to have a smooth Meet & Greet. Everything was in place and worked great. 

I had 5 stations. They are as follows:

As soon as the parents walked in the door, they had to sign in. The parents also had a choice to sign up to be a volunteer. It is always nice to see who wants to volunteer so you can see all of the options you have to lend a helping hand. Parents are just awesome like that! They love helping, so use them. :) 

Step 1: The parents followed the yellow signs. This took them to a table where they needed to pick up a baggie with their child's name on it. This baggie had everything they needed to know and sign inside of it. I even had all of the forms that needed to be signed and sent back paper-clipped. Easy and convenient for the parents. Remember, some parents have several children and have to sort through the paper work. This helps them a lot! Here is a close up of my baggies.

Inside of the baggies were as follows:

1. Meet the teacher letter
2. Remind 101 letter
3. 2 flyers about why reading is important *I found these on Pinterest..they are not created by me.
4. Lunch information
5. Student handbook pages that needed to be signed
6. Pre-K Handbook
7. Student information sheet *found on Pinterest

All of this information (except the handbooks) can be found below. 

*****One thing I forgot to put in the bag was what the students NEEDED for school**** 

Um hello! How could I forget that!? I did write that info on the board though.

Step 2: The next step was to find the brown paper bag with their child's name on it. This was a way for parents and the child to see that they had an important project to do together. The label says to bring in a few (5-6) items that tell us about you. I was going to put it in the baggie with all the other information,  but I wanted it to be a separate thing to that wouldn't get pushed to the side. On the first day of school, ALL of my bags returned. I credit this to it being separate from the baggies.

 

Step 3: This step is for the parents to tell us how they are getting home on the first day, the second day, and the rest of the year. This is definitely the most important step of the whole meet & greet affair. My Para manned the station and verified each address and made sure parents filled out everything correctly. This made for a smooth first and second day. 

I asked for the first and second day because we started school on a Thursday. Monday would be when each child really gets their routine down for dismissal. 

Here is the link for my how will your child get home.

Step 4: This step was the most fun! Parents were able to grab a scavenger hunt and explore the room with their child. This really helped to keep everyone moving and not standing around the room or talking to me the whole time. I was able to move and talk to all parents and students. It was nice! When the students were finished with the scavenger hunt, they were able to get a treasure from the Treasure Chest. 

Here is the Scavenger hunt that I used. I found it thanks to ....Pinterest, of course. Bu tI have made it easy for you to download here. It is from Little Kinder Warriors. It is a great blog! 

Step 5: This step was available for parents to grab a helping hand! I wrote down a few things we always need in Pre-K. It was a great idea. 

Meet and Greet was great! It was super busy and crazy but so much fun. I am going to have a great year this year. :) 

Monday Made It! *Class Management Addition*

I love how the Tattooed Teacher does a Monday Made It. I decided to do my own Monday Made It - Classroom Management edition.

So I have been thinking...what am I going to do for my classroom management and reward system! Last year I used the class dojo and it was amazing!

If you are new to the Dojo thing, you are in luck! Class Dojo works for almost every grade. The students are able to create their own little monster avatars and get a visual of "good" choice and "bad" choice. They get green points for good choices and red points for not-so-good choices. This is especially awesome for Pre-K because we are always teaching the kids about making good choices. Dojo makes the students SEE what is a "good" and "bad" choice and what are the consequences of those choices.

*If your interest has sparked and you want to join the Dojo movement, click the picture above!

As you can see, each student has an avatar and points.

Last year, I used a daily point system. If you had one green point, you were able to get a sticker, if you had 2 points you were able to get a candy, and if you had five points you were able to get into the treasure chest. This system was when I first started the program. After a few months, I switched it to a weekly point system. If you got 10 points you were able to go to the treasure chest, 5 points for a sweet treat, and 2 points for a sticker.

Pinterest has a lot of great ideas for this! I have seen a lot of people use coupons for their class. I may do that later in the year, after the students are used to everything. I also saw that people had cute little reward charts. I decided that I wanted to make one that fit my needs, pictured below. If you would like to use it, click on the picture and save it!

Last year, my treasure chest consisted of an undecorated shoe box (boring, right?). This summer, I decided I was going to do it right. Make it something cute and exciting. Who wants to get a prize from a shoe box? I went to Michael's and got a wooden treasure chest box. I had a coupon for 40% off and a teacher's discount. Well, here it is....before and after...

Getting Ready

I have been working slowly to get a few of my classroom essentials put together. Last year, I moved to a new school midyear, so I left all of the old decorations and job charts and organization the same to not confuse the children (and me!). So this year I get to start fresh and create my own things! I have started with a job chart! I will add the graphics here if you would like to use it or Pin it on Pinterest. 

I think I am going to print the images on cardstock and use magnet pictures of the kids in order to show who has what (nice and simple). I also was thinking about cutting each cute little polaroid out and creating one of those cute little iHelp job charts that are all over Pinterest (shown below).

 

We shall see! Let me know what you think!! :) 

My cute little Jobs!