Preparing for the First Day of School

I love to-do lists. They make me sane even though I will probably do only half of the to-do's. I will take the summer to map out my classroom and how I want those first few days to go so that I'm prepared when the whirlwind of in-service meetings begin and then you are left with a day and a half to get your classroom ready. Maybe some of these ideas will inspire.

Pocket Chart Ideas:

Calendar
Helpers
Daily Graph
Story/Poem of the Week
Mountain Language/Math
Attendance
Centers
Weekly Spelling/Sight Words list

Sticker Chart Uses:

Weekly Behavior
Homework
Accelerated Math/Reading
Book Club

Displays/Posters:

Math Vocabulary (with pictures/examples)
Science/Social Studies Theme with Literature
Quality Work Examples
Themes/Units (per grading period)
Writing Examples/Themes
Student of the Month
Birthdays
Holidays
Important/Current Events

Preparing for the 1st Week of School:

Script
Getting to Know You Activities
Transitions
Procedures
Ice Breakers
Team Building Games
Practice, Practice, Practice!

To Create Before School Starts:

Center Labels
Name Tags for Centers, Word Wall, Jobs, Graphs, Attendance
Pet Record for Feeding, Cleaning, Take-Home
School Supply Reminder Letter, Record, and Labels
Sight Word Check List, Flash Cards, Activities
Student Folders, Portfolio Check List, Observation Records
Parent Communication Binder, Print-Outs, Contact Info
Data Binder, Scores, Small Groups, Check Lists

The hardest part for me is coming up with a theme for my classroom each year. I've done jungle (Where the Wild Things Are) and Space (Doig's Discoverers) most recently. I made a little brainstorming list of possible classroom themes for next school year:

Dinos

Dolphins

Dragons

Deep Sea

Divers

Daring -

Dancing -

Dreamers

Darting -

Or I can use a familiar book series/character as a theme:

How Do Dinosaurs...?

Amelia Bedelia

Curious George

Where the Wild Things Are

Clifford

As the year progresses, don't forget to take pictures! Take a picture of each student for BOY, MOY, EOY, photos for a monthly newsletter activities, name tags, etc.

Your ideas, input, comments are welcome and much needed! Please let me know what your first day of school must-haves/traditions/preparations are.

As the summer progresses, I will add to this list and hopefully include documents, pictures, and links that may be helpful.

Comments

Planning A Morning Routine

It's important to start each preschool day the same. Children thrive with routine and you will notice that behavior problems are significantly minimized when children know what's going to happen. A timid child will have less difficulty saying goodby to Mom and an energetic child will get right to work. Needless to say, each morning for us starts the same. Which means planning is pretty repetitive as well. My first task is to find a theme. I use The Peaceful Preschool curriculum from The Peaceful Press to find a theme. The next step is to go online and reserve five to six books on the same theme from our local county library system. This planning stage must take place several days in advance in order for the books to be available in time. Otherwise, I have to make an extra trip to the library to pull books myself. Now I need to come up with several hands-on, student-led, independent activities to set out for stations....

Check out my piles!!

TAH-DAH!! Welcome to my very first link-up courtesy of Mrs. Bainbridge's Class . (I feel silly saying linky, I'm new to this blogging stuff. Give me time) ;) So here's my story... I am something of a pro when it comes to packing up my room. At my old district, of the 6 years I spent teaching I've had to pack up and move everything out of my room about 6 times. Yikes! Once, I moved rooms during the school year, with the kids in the room, in the middle of the day, given a 3 days notice (not complaining, It was a move for the better ;)). So yeah, I got this under control. This will be my first year in a new district, I cannot wait to get my junk out of the attic. (That would be my ENTIRE classroom)!! Pile one consists of boxes I've been through this summer. Nice and organized. The second and much larger pile is everything else. Who knows what I have back there! It's been a whole year since I've been in a classro...

The Letters M and X

Last week we studied the letter M because one of the picture books from the curriculum is the classic Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans. We are going on a trip to France in a few weeks so this worked out perfectly. Along with the lesson ideas described in The Peaceful Preschool , I added a few more mini lessons: We created a clock with a paper plate and made the hour hand movable. The girls practiced reading the time and finding numerals on the clock. The poem The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson mentions a clock face and we are using egg cartons to count to twelve so it all ties in nicely. Tri-fold poster we use for circle time is a work in progress. I incorporated moon phases using chocolate sandwich cookies and a worksheet from Teachers Pay Teachers . On a ridiculously hot day, I took my daughter on a nature walk. We were looking for birds to observe and draw. We happened to see an art bench covered in a mosaic of...

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