Fabulous First Day!

Let me start by saying, this was one of my greatest first days ever.  It reminded me why I went into teaching.

The kids were so eager and cheerful.  I think it's because they all got such a good night's sleep.  Most of them came in all ready, in their nice new school clothes and clean, never before worn shoes. All except my new most favorite student, Number Nine.  Number Nine clearly knows the rules of buttering up a teacher.  She came in completely zombified! I am going to give her A's now, no matter what.

Here were some of the fun things we did today:

- A student scavenger hunt (I can find someone who... sheet posted awhile back)
- We practiced lining up and quieting up with my quiet signal
- We went over the rules
- We started "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies" which is our first read aloud
- Drew self portraits
- Did our first math lesson. I love lesson 1.1.1 :)
- A tour of the school
- We read "First Day Jitters"
- We went on a pretend Zombie Hunt (to the Song, Going on a Bear Hunt)
- We began our stamina building with the Daily 5
- I taught them the card game, Bullshit
- They learned the clean up routine
- I did a spelling assessment

And then, we packed up and went home! After the kiddos left, my teaching buddies and I changed into our sexy duds and hit happy hour! We had several drinks, and now I am just ready to fall into bed. God, I love the first day of school!

Here we are, celebrating a successful first day with champagne! 

First Day Jitters!

School starts on August 22, so I am quickly getting everything ready.  I am dying to get to work in my classroom, but can't go in for another week.  I'm so excited I've been pulling these crazy all-nighters making all my crafty classroom stuff! I can't sleep anyway, so I figure I might as well be productive!

On the Friday before school starts we have an open house and I can't wait to meet all my little second graders!  I know a lot of them will be nervous about the first day of school, so I prepared a little treat for them to take home from the open house to ease their jitters before Monday morning. (So many people have been asking for downloads, that I am including a copy of my Back to School Magic sheet for download.)

I'm giving them each a copy of this poem, along with the magic goody bag.  Knowing their teacher cares, will likely help them feel much better about school the next day!  And, below is a picture of the little goody bag I made for each child.

Oooh, I can't wait for school to start.  I'm running to the pharmacy to refill my Ambien right now!