Take that _______ out of your ______

I wish I had started a tally of how many times I would say "take such-and-such out of your such-and-such!" Who knew? Those of you who have or have had 5 year-olds before maybe would have known... but me? I have been a little surprised!


Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) .... out of your mouth, please.

Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) ... out of your nose, please.

Take that .... crayon, shirt, plastic fish, library book, piece of carpet, glue, backpack strap (the list goes on and on) ... out of your ears, please.

....out of your pants, please.

.....out of your shirt, please.

....out of your shoes, please.

Really, I've been impressed with a couple of the combinations I've seen!
Sometimes these kiddos really crack me up.

Keep praying as we move into week 2!

Just keep planning

Slept in - check!
3 hours of e-Instruction Training - check!
2 ENTIRE weeks of social studies lesson planning for the Kindergarten team - check!

Plus Bryan and I knocked out all of the laundry that has continued to accumulate at an alarming rate these last couple of weeks. And he vacuumed.

Whoop.

My plan for the rest of the weekend includes trying to get all of MY lesson plans done for this week and even some of the next week if possible. Our grade level divides up the lesson planning by subject, so Social Studies HAD to be done, but I still need to take everything the other teachers put together for ELA, Math and Science + my Social Studies stuff into an actual plan for each day. I think you'd be a little surprised at how long lesson planning takes - at least for a newbie. I'm hoping I get quicker at it the more I do it. In addition to the plans I also have to prepare the materials needed for each lesson. Poor Bryan's really learning what it means to be the spouse of a teacher!! :) He very sweetly did some coloring for me yesterday, haha. He's also an expert pencil sharpener!

We're about to watch Braveheart and eat some pizza, yumm. I think this is the first time I've truly felt this much relief that it's the weekend! Phew.

I'm Alive!!

... and so are all of my students!

SUCCESS.

This week was a little rough, as I was told the first week of a brand new Kindergarten class would be, BUT I love them already and I think each day will continue to get better. Especially now that we truly have curriculum we can start adding to our day instead of mostly just rules/procedures and busy work. (Yuck.)

My team of fellow Kinder teachers have really been helpful and I've got some other mentors throughout the school that have been checking on me each day to give kind words, encouragement, a pat on the back or some much needed (and asked for!) advice. There are some incredibly amazing people that work at my school. In fact, I'm about to go get some margaritas and mexican food with one of them to celebrate the conclusion of week 1! :)
(A strawberry margarita almost always makes things at least a little better!)

AND.... Bryan's done at Brazos Technology! He's officially a Houston-dude. He's been such a wonderful help and encouragement to me this week. He deserves some bragging on :)
He has an interview next week so keep your fingers crossed.

I have some hilarious school stories to tell already. Have you heard of the show "Kids Say the Darnest Things?" Oh my goodness, it's so true. They are so funny without even meaning to, and I love it. Unfortunately I also have some not-so-good stories already too, but those aren't much fun so I prefer to think about the really positive (or at least funny) bits of each day.

Week 1 out of 36 can now be checked off!

14 going on 15

I got another new student today, and he's a handful. I was getting my class semi-settled and they were falling into some sort of basic routine with our rules and procedures and along came Mr. Tough-Stuff. If you see a Kindergarten teacher in the next few days, throw your arms around them and thank them for the fairly thankless work they do :)

I work in a pretty difficult school setting. We are a Title 1 school which means our student (and parent) population is really different from the schools most of you reading this (and I) came from. I have 13 African American and 2 Hispanic students. One of the other kinder classes is almost entirely Asian. I think there may be 2 Caucasian students in our entire grade level composed of 6(!) classes. (It's a pretty big school.) This in itself isn't that different, but adding the economically disadvantaged issue into the equation makes it MUCH more difficult. These children need to have a different set of rules, attitudes and behaviors to survive in their world. They HAVE to be tough and they feel the need to be defiant and act like nothing you say matters because that's how they have to be in their home lives.

But they're 5 years old. They need love. And many of them REALLY need an authority figure.

I happen to be an authority figure, so it works out well. I also have their best interests at heart. Unfortunately I also happen to not have a CLUE how to teach Kindergarten!! But given the circumstances, I'm learning VERY fast. I'm pretty sure I'm learning WAY more than they are right now!

I feel like I need to give 2/3 of my class major kudos for how far along they're coming though. We've got our alphabetically arranged line finally working!! Now if only we could work on not shoving or kicking other students while in line...

I have had one student making some pretty bad decisions. I have my first parent/principal/teacher conference tomorrow and I'm pretty nervous. I also have my first principal observation tomorrow which makes me really nervous. I'll just do what I'm doing and hope they have some very good advice on how to make it better!

Pathetic admission for the day: I cried.
It took me 4 days to get there though!! I kind of feel like it's a victory. And it waited until the students were officially gone, so that's another victory.
I know the other Kinder teachers are struggling right now too. This is the toughest part of the school year and I know I will survive. Keep me in your prayers!!

Anyone wondering if Bryan is still around since most posts are all about me?
He's good! In fact, he's great :) He's been the sweetest husband ever this past week. He's working hard on finishing all he needs to do since tomorrow is his LAST day at Brazos Technology! Can you believe it? The month has gone by so fast.

More news once I actually get some good sleep this weekend!
Plus, I need to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow :/ Eeek.

First Day of School

Such a simple title for such a CRAZY day.

I am almost completely out of energy and it's getting late (and I don't have my lesson plans for tomorrow finished yet!) so this will be short and sweet.

Today was a bit rough, as was expected. It definitely could have gone much worse, and I'm so grateful that it didn't. I said continuous prayers throughout the day for wisdom, patience and understanding, and I really think God was there for me today because it was a completely new experience for me! I would like to point out that I didn't lose any kids and they ALL got home the way they were supposed to! (Victory!)

So far I have 13 five-year-olds (which I believe is PLENTY), however, I think I may be getting a few more tomorrow, or some over the rest of this week. It was really interesting to get a feel for the dynamic my class will have this year. I have a couple of students who stand out for various reasons already:
One who literally wailed all day long. Not just cried, but screamed for about 5 hours.
One who is kind of a class bully. She's a 5 year old that's almost as tall as I am and almost as big, too. She also isn't sure how she feels about authority.
One who is the most hug-crazy boy I've ever met - and extremely vocal.
And one who is the sweetest, most polite, and advanced Kindergartener I think I've ever met!
There are many more and I look forward to seeing their little personalities shine through over the next few weeks.

I did decide one thing was MAJORLY necessary for tomorrow: A seating arrangement!!!

Trust me, tomorrow will go better because of it. Some kids should NOT be placed together!

Then I came home and Bryan had bought me flowers!!! This is the first time he's ever done that, because of my allergies. But he took the time to go to a florist, explain the problem and she helped him put something together that hopefully my skin or nose won't react to.
How sweet is my husband!?

He also left a very kind and loving note, which I loved just as much as the flowers. I love surprises and this made my day about a billion times better.

That's it for now!
Pray for me tomorrow!

A is for Adorable!

Yesterday just about wrapped up my time prepping the classroom before school starts! I was panicking, so once more my Mom came to the rescue :)
(Thanks, Mom! You're the best!)

Here is the library center:


On the left (across the cabinets) is our Reading Wall & on the right (whiteboard) is our Word Wall and in the center is the "teacher station" where my computer is plus all of the equipment to work the Starboard:


On the left is sort of my desk and the small group center, on the wall is where we will display student work and below that is our technology/computer center:


This is where all the carpet time happens! On the left is the flip chart, in the middle is the Starboard, the director's chair is for our Read-Aloud time, and then on the right is our math center/calendar time:


And finally, here's a photo of as much of the room as I could fit into one shot:


I realize I'm missing some chairs at that one desk, I promise I'll fix that ASAP.
I'm going back to school for just an hour or so today to finish putting their names at their seating arrangement and a few other odds and ends. Getting pretty close though!!

MeMaw Evans also stopped by yesterday to see the room and help me cut out name tags among other things. It was so good to see her and receive her help - thank you MeMaw!

Classroom Prep Madness

I'm weary to the bone, but the last two days have been EXTREMELY productive, so I feel like I shouldn't complain :)

On Wednesday my Mom joined me at school at 3:30 once our In-Service day was technically over to help me get a move on in my classroom. Our administration kindly allowed us to stay until 11:30pm (if we needed to), so I thought it would be a good day to stay (much) later than usual. My classroom was mostly empty (except for the furniture arrangement) when we started, so we got a ton done. Then my fabulous husband showed up around 5:30 with his nice height to help us hang up the butcher paper and borders on the higher hanging bulletin boards and also (thankfully) to help me set up all 4 student computers.

Check Bryan out in the very, very, very tiny but cute Kindergarten chair :)



And here is my Mom being her awesome self and hanging up letters for my Reading Wall:



And because I usually don't end up in photos, here's a picture one of them took of me finishing off a bulletin board (proof I do things too!):



And here is the final product so far!! (Although it looks pretty different after today):



It's coming along nicely! We left around 9:20pm.

Today (which I'm almost positive is Thursday...) we attended meetings and then had the afternoon to get together in our grade level groups and then to work in our classrooms and get a ton of stuff that isn't done yet, done. Does that even make sense?

So I was able to really start getting organized! There is very left to do to finish off the classroom by itself and I have everything I need to finish it (although I may need to borrow another set of hands from either family or co-workers one more time). But I have a ton of other stuff left to do: lesson plans, parent letter, conduct folders, Tuesday folders, etc etc etc.... yes, it's a very long list :( And a very intimidating one at that! However, there is still tomorrow afternoon and Saturday when things can be done! Yay!

Can't wait to show y'all finished classroom photos!! Those kiddos are showing up on Monday whether I'm ready or not, so I better get ready. (And get some sleep!)