Vistaprint!

1,003 followers??! WOW. I guess this means I should do a pretty snazzy giveaway sometime soon, huh? 

This has been the busiest summer ever. My classroom is painted, decor is put up, and just finishing up the minor details. I start school this Wednesday and guess what? I'm now teaching a K-2 so I get the best of both worlds. 

So I had a Vistaprint Groupon and finally got around to using it. I couldn't believe that it came today since it says shipping can take up to 21 days (?). It only took about 4 days so they are just looking for people to pay extra for speedy shipping! Nothing spectacular, but almost everything was free. 

Business cards, cool right? For those of you who aren't in the loop, me and a couple of colleagues opened a school this year to honor my best friend and fellow teacher who died of cancer last October (today is her birthday. You inspire me every day Sara!). The Sara Marie School website and Facebook page. 

 

This annoys me. See the parts where it is shaded grey? Well, it didn't look like that on the Vistaprint preview. Anyways, it's a notepad for absentee assignments. 

My favorite quote.. "Teaching is a work of heart." 

Homework passes.. in the past I've given them away for test grades 85+ and put them in the prize bin. I don't like how close "student's name" is to the top but I fill that part in anyways, so I can deal with it. I left white space on the bottom so I can write why they earned it so mom and dad can see. 

And I ordered THOUSANDS of these because I **or child labor** want to put one on all the books in my library. 

Well, I got 4 days to start lesson planning and figuring out next week. I hope you all had a wonderful start to your school year. I'd love to hear about it!

Well, Hello!

It's been an overly busy summer! Yesterday I worked 15 hours at The Sara Marie School getting ready for our open house today. It's a very exciting adventure and I can't wait to share photos.

I recently announced that I will be teaching kindergarten, well, good news, I will be teaching a 1/2 combo now! So those of you that were *devastated* that I wouldn't be teaching second grade anymore... you're in luck ;) Have any of you taught in a multigrade classroom? I would LOVE advice? 

Many of you are back in school and I wish you a great school year. I start on September 11, so I will slowly be sharing photos and files while getting back into the groove!

School's out for the summer!

Well, I survived! The school year is officially over and as most of you know I resigned from the school I worked at the past 3 years. 

I'm excited to begin a new journey, but my small apartment...not so much! Empty classroom = crowded -already too small- apartment!

I'm sure everyone has heard about Karen, the bus aide by now, right? I can't believe how cruel kids can be. It's almost like they take pleasure in watching other people suffer. With all of the media coverage and threats they are receiving, I still don't feel one ounce of sympathy for those rotten children. 

What does your school do to prevent bullying? I'd love to hear what resources and programs you use. 

Blog Get Together!

Capital Region bloggers, don't forget this Saturday is our get together. We've decided on Wolf's 1-11 in Colonie at noon. See you there! :) 

Time Capsule Cont'

Last night I blogged about the time capsule project my students are working on. First thing this morning they asked if they were going to work on them. They're so excited about this project. I took a few pictures today: 

This is a picture of the brown envelopes they are decorating as their time capsules. 

This is the picture of the stationery we made. Last names are blurred out for obvious reasons. I also gave them each a copy of our class list so they can cross names off as they write letters to classmates. 

And finally, here is an example of a letter written to a classmate. Is this not precious? 

Time Capsule

Back to work today after an 8 day Caribbean cruise (St. Thomas, Antigua, Tortola, and Nassau)! It was gorgeous, relaxing, and I got to kiss a dolphin ;)

Many of you are ending your year, but here in New York we go until the end of June so my class will be working on their final project of the year. Since I had most of my class twice (once in kindergarten and now again in second) they have a super special place in my heart and we've had a lot of great memories together. These kiddos will all hopefully graduate high school in 1 decade so we are creating time capsules. They are decorating large brown envelopes and   their capsules will include letters from their classmates, pictures from this year and kindergarten, work that they are proud of, a note from me, and a letter from their parents/siblings. I cannot even begin to tell you how EXCITED my kids are for this project. 

I'll include pictures as we go but today we started by making personalized class stationery that will be used to write letters. I'll take a picture of mine tomorrow, but I got the general idea from this Pinterest photo. I only have 12 students so each day for the next 11 days each student will write a letter to a different classmate to include in the time capsule

This is the letter I'm sending home to include the parents in this project. 

Has anyone ever done a project like this? I'm really excited. I love looking at stuff I did in elementary school so I'm hoping this becomes memorable to the students one day. I'll post more about it as we work on it. 

So far we have about 6 of us!!! Don't miss out, RSVP :D