The First Day of School!!!

A new year starts! This is my second year teaching first grade. Our first grade team has been working hard preparing for this new bunch of munchkins. I feel we are off to a better, more productive, start than last year. We've been working together and getting things done. I had 15 sweet little first graders walk through my door today. I felt I had a pretty good day considering I'm 9 weeks pregnant with twins and it was the first day of school. I thought for sure my day was going to take a turn for the worse when I woke up with a bad bout of sickness. Luckily, by the time I arrived at school everything was alright. The day went about how I expected. Hardly anything got accomplished that was on the lesson plan. We tried to establish some rules and routines. Overall, the day was quite a blur. We will continue to use this first week to set rules and procedures and hammer out any kinks. I was very pleased with my munchkins. They are super adorable and very sweet. Their behavior was pretty good for the first day of school. I just keep reminding myself that they are still little, still getting over their kindergarten expectations. Most of them were ready to pass out by 1:00. We also had to discuss appropriate restroom times and the fact that we don't serve snack in first grade. That may take some getting used to. I ended my day with organizing all the school supplies that the kids helped sort.

I am super proud of my classroom this year. I never really felt that my room was good enough last year. I had a lot of issues with getting used to all the space I had. I went from a super tiny room, to a huge amount of space. I felt I had too much open space that allowed for little ones to run about. I definitely fixed that problem this year. A huge shout out goes to my mom and sister, Amanda, for coming one weekend and spending an entire day setting up my room. Here was the end result....

Major shout out to my sister, Amanda, for decorating my name sign. 

Everyone must know where my loyalties lie:)

This next picture just a basic view of my red informational wall and the kids' desks. I switched from tables to desks this year because the tables drove me nuts! I wanted the kids to have a place to store all their stuff and quit taking room up on my shelves. We will see how it goes.

I did this cute little welcome sign  for sneak-a-peek this past Friday. I decided to leave it up for a few days.

In first grade, one of the most important things you can have up in your room is your word wall. This provides a reference point for the kids to look up their sight words. They use this for reading and writing. In first grade, they must learn 105 sight words. 35 of those words were learned in kindergarten. I made the word wall magnetic this year so the kids could go up and remove words to bring back to their desk. Also, this will be good if we play word wall games.

The next important piece is the classroom library. Last year I failed miserably at this. However, live and learn and fix it. I am way proud of my library this year. I brought in some old bar stools that I used to have in my apartment when I first moved to DFW, and I also brought in Mr. Browning's big, black chair from his bachelor days. These things were just taking up room in our attic and living room. Might as well put them to use.

This is a picture of the classroom mailbox. I will eventually teach the kids where to locate all their papers when they pack up for the day.

Sticking with my theme from last year, this locker bank sports some music themed locker tags.

The following three pictures are courtesy of my sister, Amanda, yet again. She seriously got busy while she was here. She is going into education and wanted the experience. So I told her, "get ready!" It is some serious hard work setting up for the year. It really isn't as fun as it appears. She definitely felt the frustration, but she buckled down and rocked out these bulletin boards. I was so proud! First, the inside work display board. I have a similar board outside my room, but wanted something to display work inside the room.

In Literacy, we do Daily 5 stations. This bulletin board will eventually contain the I-Charts that explain the rules and expectations in each station.

This bulletin board is my calendar and number corner area. I got my cute calendar set at Mardel for $7.99! That's practically a steal!!!

And last, but certainly not least, this is my teacher area. I am showing where my loyalties lie. Red Raider forever!!!

Texas Tech road sign, pennant, flag, Scentsy warmer, picture frame, and mouse pad. Please also note the red and black "B" on the front of the desk. Love, Love, Love my area! My neighbor teacher makes fun of me for my excessive support:)

My mom also helped out a lot with cutting out lamination (huge pain that I do not wish to do). I appreciate all the work that my mom and sister put into my room. It looked great and was ready to go when my munchkins arrived. So here is to a great school year! I know I'm going to rock it....pregnant!