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 -July 22, 2013

So...only two more days of freedom and I still have work to do! lol

I am excited to get back and meet my new kitties! I even have some cool ideas for my door! But since it is Monday, I guess I should get in to some of the things I have been working on making. :) 

Here is the first thing. I made these awesomely huge pillows for my reading area (don't worry I added a carpet to the reading area, looks much better) that have been floating all over Pinterest. I made mine a tad bigger! Check it out.

Step 1: You really need to pick two corresponding fabrics that you want to use as your pillow. One for the sides and one for the top and bottom. The fabric that you choose for the top/bottom needs to be 2 yards. The side fabric needs to be one yard long. You need to lay the 2 yard fabric out and cut it in half. Take the yard of side material and measure two pieces to fit the length and two pieces to fit the width. The depth of each side piece needs to be 7 inches.

Step 2: Once you are finished cutting, make sure that you pin the sides to the top (like sides facing each other) and sew them together. Do this for each side. When you are finished, make sure you take the other yard of fabric (the bottom of the pillow) and start pinning them to the sides of the fabric. Sew it all up! While you are there, sew the creases except for one. Pull the fabric right-side-out. This is where you will shove all of the stuffing. 

Step 3: With the last slit open, get some help from little hands (child labor laws don't apply to home situations, right?!), and push the  stuffing in. When you are finished make sure you sew that slit. 

Finally, enjoy your pillow. Kin and Eric looooved it. They want me to make them their own. 

Here are some links that helped me: 

I got the tutorial and idea via Pinterest. This is the lady's tutorial (it is probably way more in depth and helpful than mine). She really uses plain English and no-sew terms that works for beginners. 

Also, be aware, I made my pillows much bigger than hers. She made hers 30X30 and mine were about  36X42. I used 5 pounds of stuffing. You can get it at Hancock Fabrics for $15.99 plus 15% off with your teacher badge..it came to $13.99 with mine.

This is what it looks like

The next thing I made were some tissue paper pom-poms to spice up my room. I made them myself because in the stores, they want like 6 bucks for them! Seriously!! But thanks to the internet, I made these babies for a whopping $1.99. Get you some tissue paper from the good ole HobLob and find a tutorial on line (like this one) and you are there!

And finally, as promised, a close-up of my job chart and weather chart. I failed to do so in my last post, so here is a better view. 

Now that I am almost finished with everything, I have to make a "How we get home" board. I guess I will work on that for next week. :) 

Monday Made It! 7/15/13

Welcome to Monday Made It! This is one of my favorite Linky Parties! I just love getting to make things from other things that have inspired me. Did that even make sense?! LOL Well I have so many projects happening right now that I don't even know where to start or finish. So here is what I have finished for sure..Also, I am the worst at taking before and after pictures! So I have a lot of finished things that I have been doing this week, BUT I never took a picture of. So look for those next week (hopefully)!

So there is so much on Pinterest that we all love and want to re-create, right?! Well a while back I pinned a picture of a gift idea with 30 lollipops with the caption "30 Blows!"

Well, July 4th was my sister's 30th birthday! What better way to say happy birthday than 30 lollipops. I set out on my journey looking for 30 lollipops (Blow Pops to be exact) and something to hold them in. Well, after a trip to the Dollar Tree, I had all that I needed.

Here is the Pin-spiration and here is my creation!

I also got the chance to finish my job chart. I posted some graphics of the job chart I made a few weeks back and did not know what I was going to do. I posted the pin of the iHelp iPad and loved that idea. So I ran with it! After all, we are living in a technological world! :)

There it is on the board that I finished up the other day! I didn't take a close up. I should have!

I also made the weather chart that's on the board. I saw it on Pinterest and followed the link. When I went to the blog, the blogger offered it for free but you had to pay to use the document download site. I decided to make my own! The only thing is.... I made the snowy and weather today boxes a little too big. You'll have to cut them to size! Sorrryyyyyy. 

This is the Pinterest one I was going to have to pay for! Click to get my version! :) 

Well that is it for my MMI! Check out the other great links on 4th Grade Frolics. There are some good ones. Oh and keep checking back this week...I am going to post some pictures of my *ALMOST* finished classroom.

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...

Five For Friday!

So it is my first time joining a Linky Party and I am not sure how to do it! Ha but here is my attempt. :) 

1. On Wednesday, Eric and I took our daughter on a mini-vacation to the aquarium and World of Coke in Atlanta. It was a lot of fun! We watched the dolphin show there, which was pretty cool. We also saw penguins and whales...and sharks! I am not a fan of sharks. I have a legit phobia of them (even pictures make me cry and I really avoid talking about sharks during ocean lessons). Anyways, we decided to take a trip to the World of Coke after that. Y'all, I have a Coke addiction. I love it. So I was excited. Kinley really like the 4D movie and tasting the sodas. She even got to taste the Kinley from England! 

2. Being home with Kinley during the summer has been hard but also rewarding. She is such a diva and a girly-girl. Speculation says that I am the one making her that way, but I believe she was just born that way. Check out this video I took of her putting on my lipstick! She always wants to put on make-up with mommy. (quicktime video)

3. I have been working on my room for the past few days. It has been a lot of work! It is always tough moving in to a new room with a lot of things that are not yours. I must say, I am rocking it though (thanks to my mom for helping). It doesn't look like we did much, but 20 garbage bags later, it feels more organized and clean! I am excited to get the decorating done. 

4. I have also been working on things for open house. I have made an "About Me" letter and gotten a few ideas of things from other blogs. Let me know what you think about my letter! I got the border from Jennifer Jones. It was a great deal! 

5. Yesterday, Kinley had a dance recital. She has been in dance for 3 weeks and they had a recital yesterday. She did not like a room full of people looking at her. She cried and did not want to dance! After a little girl helped her for a little bit, she got a little more comfortable! 

Thank you for reading my first Five for Friday! I promise, next time I will have more interesting stuff to say! :) And pictures of my FINISHED classroom....right?! 

PS: Don't forget to check out Doodle Bugs Teaching and all of the other great blogs that are linked up there!

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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!