Five for Friday {September 6}

I'm happy to get back on the "Five for Friday" train this week!  

I had a great first week of school!  I am loving my sweet new crew of students.  Some of them DO make me a tad crazy during the day, but I keep reminding myself that by the end of the year I will wish I could hang onto them forever!  It ALWAYS happens that way!

1. Free Choice time is a very, very good thing the first week of Kindergarten.  Oh, who am I kidding?  It's awesome ALL YEAR LONG!  But, this week, we all NEEDED it.  By 2:00, my students and I were both ready for some down time.  

The first couple weeks of school, I run Free Choice time in stations that I organize.  Students rotate through the stations with their table groups.  Eventually, I will give up control and the kids will get to choose their own free choice activities.  We still have lots of expectations to cover before that happens!

 

 

 2. Speaking of expectations, don't you love when you're in the middle of something and all of a sudden it hits you that you haven't taught your expectations for that certain thing yet???  I had that this week with glue sticks. 

WAIT!  WAIT!  You don't have to twist the glue stick out this far to use it!

 And WAIT!!!  PLEASE don't put the cap back on it until you twist it down!!!

I was too late to save them all.  Glue stick mini-lesson in the plans for Monday morning.

3. We completed some activities from Growing Kinders' Backpack Boogie pack this week.  Cutting practice is a must at the start of the year.  Gotta spot those kiddies who hold the scissors wonky.

(This little guy is good to go, but I do have some who need some good practice.)

Oh my preciousness!

4. My OWN two kiddies both started school over the past week as well.  Both kids are LOVING their teachers and classes.  So fun!

5. My first week WAS great, but it DID include an unexpected phone call yesterday morning that my son had gotten sick at school (felt reeeeeeally bad for his sweet teacher with that one!).  SO...I had fun making sub plans for my fourth day of Kindergarten.  Why not??!?  Thinking about my students RIGHT NOW, and hoping that their day is going well!  I hope my guest teacher brought extra patience and energy along for her day today.  Fourth day of school kindies don't mess around.  Well, they do, actually.  You know what I mean.

ANYWAY...all in all, a good first week.  Back at it with a five-day week next week.  Pretty sure it will kick my butt, but bring it on!