Meeting my kids tomorrow!

I had my open house last Thursday. One of the moms cried and told me how happy she was that her child would be spending his days in my room with me. I still feel happy about the comment. My room is super simple. I am working on the premise that good teaching and letting the kids put work on the walls will be the best course of action this year. I have YEARS to make it look perfect. Here are the pictures. I can't WAIT to have them all in the room and make it ours.


Glad to be teaching, Kimberly

Thank you veteran teachers!

Today I went to visit a friend of mine who is a Kindergarten teacher and has been for 20 years. She is awesome. I want to be JUST like her. Her room is neat and organized and joyful and colorful. She is such a professional. She gave me great ideas to help me focus on what to prioritize. So right now my focus is on getting the basic routine in order so that I can start school and maintain. During the year I plan to fill up big plastic bins from Target with unit items. Since I'm starting with an apple unit. I'll put all my apple books and poems and activities in the bin, label it apples and...voila! I'll be ready for the next time I teach about apples. It may sound simple, but these kinds of small organizational strategies are what my brain needs right now. I am also going to focus on just one teaching book for the year so that I stop reading and start teaching. This year I am loving Everything You Need to Know to Teach First Grade by Pat Barrett Dragan. Her advice is simple and to the point. That is my focus this year, SIMPLE and to the POINT.

Almost ready!

I'm off to my classroom today hopefully to do some finishing up. I have downloaded lots of great ideas from Erica Bohrer and from Little Priorities among many many others. I am so grateful to the teacher bloggers for their assistance this year. But, I would be remiss not to mention Jessica Meacham because her blog literally transformed how I prepared for my first year teaching first grade. I am forever grateful. Thank you!

I can't wait to meet my new little ones. I have a meeting today with a parent of a special needs child in my room and I am so excited. It makes it feel more real.

Getting set up.

I have never taught first grade before and I've never had a blog before, but I wanted to do both this year. So! Here I am. Every year, I write out ten areas that make a balanced life (including things like financial, emotional, professional, spiritual, etc) and I put at least two goals in each category. I wanted to move to teach first grade because I have been a literacy specialist and learned that I really missed having my own classroom. I also wanted a blog because I learn so much from other teacher blogs and I wanted to be a part of this world. I have no idea how this works really, but I am going to do what I always do...act as if until I get it.