First Day of School

It's always tough figuring out what to do with those first three hours of school.  In my district it's only a half day.  Just enough time to begin building relationships, setting initial procedures, and maybe a thing or two more.

This year my district's focus is bullying--rather stopping and preventing bullying.  We had a really great presenter last week, Kevin Honeycutt, who talked a lot about cyber-bullying.  This is a new thing for us after all. I know I didn't grow up with all the pressures of online friendships.

Anyhow, Kevin has a really cute and highly effective story set to PowerPoint that targets bullying from the safety net of a cute dog named Starbuck.

This is something I'll show on the SmartBoard with the kids while pulling the sympathy/empathy out of our discussion.  We will brainstorm and list ways to prevent bullying from happening and from this, we will generate our classroom rules/guidelines.  I feel strongly that starting this way will get us off on the right foot.

When the kids first walk in there will be several things at their table but among all those supplies will be a baggy with a small ball inside.  Optional extra, have your parents come up to visit you for two dyas over Labor Day weekend and then stay extra long because your husband and dad decided to remodel the bathroom.  Then have your mom work classroom slave labor for you, including working on perfecting playdough. Thanks mom!

I came across this on one of the teacher blogs I read, Clutter-Free Classroom. I later Googled playdough recipes/back to school (or something like that) and came across A Teacher at Heart's blog. She blogged about and reviewed Teacher Tom's playdough recipe, which I agree, is awesome!

So here's my two cents on the subject.  First, I think this is a great way to help work out any nervous tension the students may have on the first day of school.  Secondly, who doesn't like to take a prize home with them?  All together a good idea (thanks ladies and gents!).

Following Teacher Tom's recipe, when all ingredients are mixed together-sans food coloring, it looks a bit like this.

You'll know it's done when they playdough starts to form a kind of skin on the outside.

Let your playdough set on wax paper for a couple of minutes.  Although, I really don't think you need to wait the five minutes it suggests. Once it's a temperature your hands can handle, form it into a small ball.  Then form a hole in the playdough ball big enough to house food coloring.

The hole may look something like this although I learned quickly to make the hole bigger, almost like hollowing out the middle.

Drop in around five or six drops of food coloring.  I used red to test but ended up using the neon colors for school.  Cover up the hole as carefully as you can so as to not disturb the food coloring.  Place each ball into a bag and seal.

For the first day of school I'll have the students work the playdough around in the bag for about a minute.  When the food coloring no longer appears liquidy, they may take it out of the bag and work it with their hands.

So, why a blog post about not bullying and playdough?  The Starbuck story line and the playdough work together like this--not judging a book by its cover--it's what's on the inside that counts.  You get the point.  I'm really hoping to drive this home in those first three hours and to keep it going strong all year long.

All you teacher readers out there, have a fantastic first day!

Welcome Back Door-Update

Here are a few pictures of the completed door.  I actually haven't decided if I'm going to put names on the door or not.  I may do air bubbles and have the kids do their own names.

The Welcome Back Door

Every year this throws me for a loop.  I toss around just sticking the kid's names on the door to going hog wild.  I've been able to reign it in and meet that somewhere in the middle.

This year I came across a blog that had a phrase on it that really resonated with me. "We all may be fish of a different kind but in this school we swim together."

Love it.

So now, what to do?  First off, you should know, I'm not an artistic person.  Sure, I'm creative but I really struggle with getting the ideas in my head onto a canvas.  So here's my plan.

The next step is to add the fish.  I'm borrowing a friend/parent's Cricut cartridge and am going to use some funky prints with these fish:

My apologies--no idea why these photos are not cooperating.  So, they're upside down...sigh.

Last year my door looked like this:

Tomorrow is my official first day back to work.  Luckily it's building-level.  We'll get the chance to chat and reconnect before we dive back into the year.

Welcome!

Welcome to this new venture for me.  I've blogged personally for a few years but after much scouring of the internet for things in my professional life I figured it was high time I share what I have too.


I believe in the sharing of ideas but making sure the credit is given for them.  First and foremost, I have to thank Becks for helping me decide on a name.  My idea here is to share what we're doing in our classroom, which happens to be a third grade room.  But it's that time of year where Back-to-School is all the rage and I was in the mood for some fresh ideas.


As my introductory entry I've decided to share a great find.  I had the idea in my mind--a cup or tumbler of sorts to hold supplies.  My classroom has tables, not desks, so there is no storage.  In the past my students have had "bins".  These ended up being cardboard book boxes--can we say disaster?  They tore, the bottoms fell out, and they tipped over. I've upgraded this year but I'll share that later.


Today I went to several stores in search of these supply cups.  At a couple of stores they had what I wanted but only four or five of them.  Another store had super cute mini buckets but they were $1.50 a pop.


Finally, a last ditch effort to Hobby Lobby and just as I was about to leave I spied another clearance section. 

These were cute and not exactly what I was looking for but guess what sealed the deal?

Sold!  

I had already purchased velcro dots to help affix them to the table so now it was time to get to work.  

First, I made sure to use rubbing alcohol on the table and the bin to remove any oils or what have you.  Then I affixed the velcro to the table and the bin--fuzzy part on the bin.  

 Voila!

Now to see if the daily supplies will fit.

Perfect!

I did have some bumps in the road.  There were only 24 of these bins and I needed 28.  Not sure why it hadn't dawned on me before to share bins between table partners but I'm glad it did.  This will save space and money.  While I originally wanted a harder plastic I realized these will be just as great because I could throw them in the dishwasher if I need to.


Thanks for stopping by and stay tuned for my next share: