Time Off

I had to take some time off because I have not felt well since school began. I will be going back in January and will begin posting again.

Ladybug Girl and Bumblebee Boy

Today I read this book to my class and I have to say it is one of the cutest books, my students loved it and I could hear them saying they were going to be Ladybug Girl. I decided since the class enjoyed this book so much it was a great oportunity to write about what superhero they would want to be. I will post some pictures later. I plan on making a class book with their pages. Loved this book and how it had my students attention.

Daily Schedule Cards

I just had to share what I found on Pinterest (my new obsession) Mrs. Carroll over at The First Grade Parade is sharing these Daily Schedule cards.

She has these as a FREE download, don't forget to leave a thank you if you use these.

....and if you haven't started using Pinterest you have to check it out, come follow me!

Click Here for update to this post

Kindergarten is like a box of chocolates

Raise your hand if you are exahusted!!
As I sit here wrapping my brain around what is to come from my new group of Kinders, I can't help but think of Forest Gump. Yep Forest Gump and I quote "Life is like a box of chocolates" well the same can be said about Kindergarten. Kindergarten is like a box of chocolates you never know what you are going to get.

I also think about the movie "Groundhog Day", we phase our students in slowly so the teachers students can adjust to a new school year. Which results in doing and saying the same thing each day. I will be doing this until Thursday when I will have all 20 of my students. Last year I had 17 students so having three more little personalities will be interesting.
As far as my box of chocolates: Like many I have some students who do not know how to hold scissors or a pencil.
On the bright side I only had one student tear up and he was fine within a few minutes.

Tomorrow I will drop my youngest son off to begin college and I can tell you there is going to be a mom doing more than tearing up.

Well enjoy your weekend and get some rest.

Letters

I am attempting to be a better blogger! We all get so busy and the beginning of the school year is no exception. But the purpose of blogging (for me) is to share great ideas that will help us be better teachers.

Today's find! Thanks to Mrs. Larremore over at Chalk Talk:A Kindergarten Blog... is Do-A-Dot letters...

you can download these from Shannon over at Tot School.  She has upper and lowercase letters.I have pinned this on my Pinterest account! Don't you just love Pinterest, I am such a visual person this was made for me.

I start school Monday with meetings for all Kinder teachers about the Common Core Standards and then we have students on Tuesday. I will be posting some pics of my classroom soon. I hope everyone has a great beginning of the school year!!!

How do you keep your data?

Laura at Kinder Kraziness is having a linky party about how everyone keeps all of the great ideas found here in blog land saved.

I think this is a great topic and if you are keeping all of your data files saved on just your computer I can say from experiance you must save this information on some type of storage device other than just the computer .

I still save things on my computer at home and at school but I keep a copy of everything on a flashdrive. The one I am using now is a 1g and it is full. I am planning on buying a new flashdrive that is at least an 8g soon. I am hoping some will go on sale with the back to school sales.
Oh and to just share for a moment the reason I say that I know from experiance to keep your data backed up and I just need to say make sure that you are saving it correctly and that you aren't just clicking save. The reason I say this is because I was, I kept the books for a school before I became a teacher. I was the school secratary / nurse / attendance / etc. (you get the picture). Anywho I had been using a computer system and each day I pressed save and thought that I was saving all of this information I had put in that day. Well in April of the school year my computer CRASHED! So I lost all of the data I had put in from July until April (the fiscal school year is July - June of the following year) I was lucky that I had paper copies I could use but I had to re-enter all of the information for almost the entire school year:o( It was a very sad and stressful time). Long story short no one had correctly shown me how to back up the information and to save it on an external hard drive. You can be sure I found out real fast how to put this informaiton in and save it correctly.
If you are not sure how to do this ask someone it can save you a lot of heart aches.
So share how you keep up wiht the great ideas you have found onthe internet.

Best of Luck
Penny

Freebie

I guess it's time to get back to my blogging! I love teaching but I work during the summer and don't have much extra time, but it's getting close to time for school to start back and I am on the look out for some great, inexpensive / free ideas to use this year.

Donna over at Peace, Love and Learning has a really great FREEBIE!!! So go check her out.

I try to do one big party for my class near the end of the school year to celebrate all of the birthdays. This way we are celebrating those summer birthdays.

How do you celebrate birthdays in your classroom, I would love some great ideas.

I have some great finds from Target Dollar Spot (love) that I will post about later.