Mission: Back to School

Well friends, it's been a while! It was a whirlwind of a school year, and I'm fully enjoying my summer break with my almost-2-year-old. Pool days for the win!

While I was taking EM to the library this summer, I spotted a book on the shelf that I knew would be a perfect read aloud for Back to School time. It's so cute, and I love the "mission" language that the author uses throughout the book (hello vocabulary!)

Mission: Back to School by Susan Hood

CLICK HERE to order now on Amazon

Walk through a daily routine at school with this book, from getting dressed in the morning to sharing about your day at the dinner table. This is a great tool to introduce your classroom routines/procedures/expectations to little ones. 

This Mission: Back to School book companion pack is a great addition to your first day of school (or week) plans to communicate with your students in a fun and engaging way.  After reading the book aloud, there are several activities that you can incorporate to teach about routines/procedures. This book is probably geared for grades K-2, with some of your kinders needing some guided writing for the booklet and craftivity pages.

Each page of this booklet corresponds to the steps outlined in the book. It's put in simple language and offers writing practice to reflect on each step. Printing tip: works great as a 2-sided booklet to save paper!

Make your students feel special with these editable agent name tags! Easily able to punch holes and attach string to make a lanyard!

One way you can build community during Back to School week is with the Kindness Catcher Reports! Students have to "catch" other students being kind, and then they can give a shoutout. You can keep this activity going for weeks, months, or all year round!

To wrap up the lesson (or week), have your students make a "mission" goal for the school year. They can decorate a boy or girl agent to glue with their goal!

Check out this low prep and engaging Back to School resource by clicking on any picture in the post or by clicking THIS DIRECT LINK.

Have questions? Leave a comment below, find me on Instagram at @mrs._elementary, or email me at mrselementary@gmail.com

First Full Week of School!

Oh. My. Word.

Never have I ever felt such exhaustion. I've been running around the halls like a crazy person these first few days, and my legs and feet have never been so sore. I LOVE IT!! This means that I am back in full swing, ladies and gentlemen. I've got such a sweet, precious class-I know we are going to have a great year together! Here is the first full week with my new sweeties:

Monday:
4 - count 'em - FOUR new faces joined our class Monday morning. (Did I mention I've been running around like a crazy person??) Our class is finally complete with 21 sweeties, and we are rockin' and rollin'.

I decided to do an author study with Kevin Henkes books this week, so we started with a first week of school classic: Chrysanthemum.

(click on the pictures to find the books on Amazon)

We talked about how our words can make other people sad or happy - wilt or bloom. We watched what happened to Chrysanthemum's heart as the mean words were said to her (wrinkled a big red paper heart) and then opened it up when Mrs. Twinkle was nice to her. We signed the heart and hung it on the wall outside our classroom, saying that we promise to never use our words to wrinkle others' hearts. They took it very seriously. Too. Stinkin'. Sweet. 

Tuesday:

We made Chrysanthemum flowers and wrote about what makes us wilt and what makes us bloom. Find the activity here with Hollie Griffith. 

cutie-patootie

Wednesday:
Sorry, no pictures. We finished our Reading Baseline Test and went to the library for the first time. Not a very exciting day, just practiced routines, rules, blah blah blah. You know how it goes!

Thursday:

 Why haven't I read this book more often?!?? Kids stress and worry, too. This book really allowed for some connections-everybody worries, but it doesn't have to be all that you do! Our reading skill for this book was compare/contrast with Venn diagrams and text-to-self connections. I got all the materials I needed from Read with Me ABC. My kids loved it!

Friday:

We had our first visitor today!

Back off ladies, he's mine. :)

My class LOVED my husband, and he's such a good reader! He asked them good questions throughout the book and made them giggle a lot-especially the girls. It was so great having "Mr. Shawn" come visit. In honor of his month in the NICU at DCH, he read Julius, The Baby of the World to wrap up our Kevin Henkes week. 

After he read, we made a Wemberly craft and connection from Worried Wemberly Back to School Activities. I love the way they turned out!

I promise I teach math! We've been practicing using math tools such as connecting cubes and shape blocks. We are perfecting the way we sit on the carpet for math talk time and work in groups during math workshop. Next week comes the interactive, cooperative learning!

That wraps up our week! Overall, I'm really impressed with my crew. They work great in groups and want to make me happy - every teacher's dream! I keep forgetting they are only 7 years old. We've definitely got some growing to do, but I think we are going to have a lot of fun together!

Now for a 9:30 bedtime on a Friday night. I know, I know.

Don't judge. 

August Morning Work

Shawn had a HUGE medical school test on Friday that was out of town - a 9 hour test about anything medical related. Gross. Which means I was alone for a couple of days. So, what's a teacher in the summer with her husband away going to do?? Why, you watch movies on the couch all day long and make morning work packets! Obviously, right?!

I know you wish you had my life. (School starts in 2 weeks-gotta soak in the last little bit of summer laziness!)

I know there are several ways to assess what your sweeties know at the beginning of the year, but why not use a fun, engaging morning work packet to get an informal look at those sweeties' brains??

August Morning Work

My students have a folder just for their morning work. After they unpack and get settled in the morning, they know to get out their Morning Work folder and look at the board to see what page to complete. Nobody is walking around the room to pick up papers, turn in papers, or ask me 9732984 questions about what they are supposed to be doing. (I print front and back to save paper). I don't usually take a grade for it, but I'm trying to find a way where it won't consume my time for a quick grade. Open to suggestions!

Each page has 7 items-a mix of reading and math on both pages. As you can see, not every day has the same layout so it's new and fresh each morning (but still relevant!). This pack is mainly a first grade review with some 2nd grade skills that are super important all year long. I plan for the other morning work packs to be aligned with our reading and math skills in our curriculum for that month. Just waiting on that ever-wonderful pacing guide. :)

Stop by my TPT store by clicking the button on my blog OR get it here!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

A peek into my classroom

Is it possible for teachers to not think about school during the summer??? I've been popping in our building since my floors have been waxed and shiny (My floor looks brand new! Considering what it went through this past year, it's amazing...really).

Last year, I was the new teacher on the block and didn't have a CLUE what to do with an empty classroom. Actually, it wasn't completely empty. The first time I saw my room it looked like this:

woah. 

Pretty soon, it was all cleaned out and I had nothing. And when I say nothing, I mean nothing. I scraped together enough materials in one month to call this thing a classroom and it looked like this:

Still a bit empty, but ready for some 2nd grade sweeties. So many people donated time and resources to help me start my first year. I am forever thankful!

At the end of the school year, I knew I wanted to change some things around for my next batch of sweeties. I've collected a bit more classroom goodies over the year, and I've filled in my room a little! I'm waiting to put names on some stuff everything until right before our Meet and Greet on August 5th. It will change several times until about the 2nd week of school! I've still got a bit more to put up, but here it is!

Now, it just needs my new 17 little sweeties to make it complete! 

Oh, and see that thing pulled up on my computer screen? A teacher-friend showed me an amazing interactive math notebook from Blair Turner and I think I'm going to be in LOVE with math journaling this year! Her 2nd Grade Common Core Math Interactive Notebook has "I Can" statements and vocabulary words for each standard which is simply fantastic. I spent my afternoon printing all the pages (there are quite a bit). They are ready to be sorted with tabs labeled by standards-not at all Type A, right?!