It’s so close.  School is beginning soon–for me it’s the second week of August.  Guess where I will be this week…yup, school, and when the week ends, I will still have things that need to be done.  It is mind blowing how much we teachers must prepare before the first day.  Like many of you, I will be taking advantage of the sale tomorrow and Tuesday! I have had some things in my cart for a while, so it means a lot that I will be able to get them at 28% savings!

During the first week of school we will be busy learning routines.  During this time I will explain and chart expectations for our class.  Among the things we will learn about are the level of noise allowed in our classroom for work time, cooperative learning time, and individual work times.  For this lesson, we learn about holding up a finger for no talking, two fingers for quiet cooperative work, and three fingers for when we play games or do activities like Go Noodle or Harry Kindergarten.  You can find this visual in my store.

Another routine we will learn is the procedure for writer’s workshop.  During the time I conference with students, my class knows that writers are never done.  Students know to tell me they need a restroom break by showing the sign for letter b.  Otherwise, the posters in our room help them remember writers can:

1.  Draw a picture.

2. Work on writing the words.

3. Start a new piece.

This helps them remember they are ALWAYS working on some stage of the writing process.  To grab this set you can find them here. Posters in black/white are also included as well as storybook writing paper with kindergarten ruled lines.

Another routine we will establish is working in our math journals during math work station time.  The journal page will coincide with the current skill we are learning.  Prompts on the pages will direct students, but the way they respond can be varied.  We love to use  paint daubers or stickers to show our work.  The standards aligned journals cover all CCSS, but fit into most math programs.  You can find them here.

Don’t forget to use the BTS15 code to save an additional 8%!

I hope you have a wonderful school year! I’ll be posting photos of my classroom soon.