A Kindergarten Smorgasboard Schedulin’ Sunday: August 3rd, 2015

It’s BAAAAAAAAACK!   

Schedulin’ Sunday returns for a brand new school year!!!  

While I am sad to see summer come to an end…because let’s face it…getting out of bed every day and putting on real clothes and taking a shower is overrated.  But I am super excited for a new school year!!

I’m at a new school that is exactly 9 minutes from my house…with  a much larger classroom…and a different population of students!   This year is going to be EPIC!  

AND it’s my 10th year of teaching!!!!!!!!!!!

As always, you can download my lesson plans each Sunday!   Just click the picture!

We start school Wednesday with a half day.  Thursday is a teacher work day and Friday is another half day!  

I try to run my first 2 half days like a regular day so we can immediately start to settle into our routines.

As the ‘staches arrive, I greet them, chat with parents and make sure we get dismissal information.  MAKE SURE TO GET THE DISMISSAL INFORMATION!!!!!!

I have already placed carpets and clipboards with coloring sheets around the classroom.  Since we do no tables/no desks I want them using the carpets immediately.  I tell the ‘staches to find a carpet and sit down and color.  (If they finish all of the coloring pages, they can draw on the back!)

Here is one of the coloring sheets we use!  You can lick the picture for a free copy!

I also give the ‘staches a picture of Mr. Greg to color!

When it’s time to clean up, I have the ‘staches stay where they are.  I talk about our clean up song.  Then we play our clean up song.  It’s Mustache (of course!) by the Funky Monkeys!

Then I model how to roll up their carpet.  And we practice.    And I model how to walk to the basket and put away the carpet and come to the carpet and sit criss cross applesauce!

Then I play the clean up and we practice.  

If we do a good job, we’re ready for morning meeting.  If not, we practice again.  And again.  And again.  And…well, you get the point!

Then we have our first morning meeting.  I introduce myself and talk about our classroom and how wild and fun and glittery and messy we get to be in kindergarten!  

I always make a speech to the ‘staches about how it’s not MY classroom.  It’s not MY stuff.  It’s OUR stuff.  It’s OUR classroom.  I want them to know immediately that this classroom belongs to all of us and everything in our classroom belongs to all of us. This allows them to take ownership of the classroom and materials immediately!   (Seriously…do this.  Makes a huge impact and helps with taking care of supplies and materials!)

Then we have our greeting.  We go around the circle and we say:  “Hi, my name is…”.  

After that I have the ‘staches practice my name a few times.  Ya know…so they don’t call me teacher.  And they will remember who they belong to if they get lost….Just in case!

Next up, we sing!!

After singing, we read Miss Bindergarten Gets Ready For Kindergarten.

Then we talk about how we got ready for kindergarten and how Miss Bindergarten got ready for kindergarten!

Then we have brunch which gives us our first practice at lining up and walking in the hallway.  Insert lots of aimless wandering ….lots of stop and go…more aimless wandering.  

And then the stairs.  The dreaded stairs.  Just thinking about it makes my stress level go up.  

After brunch, it’s more walking and wandering to the classroom.

We practice our name writing with a class chart and independent practice!

Everyone writes their name.  We cheer for each person.  Then I laminate this poster and display it.  (I will then do this again at winter break and the end of the year to show our growth!)

After we do our class chart,  Mr. Greg shows us what a pencil is and how we use it.  (Model holding it, writing with it, breaking it, scribbling with it…and discuss these things as they are happening!)

Finally, we get blank paper and practice our names!  This goes in the hallway as our very first piece of kindergarten work!

Then we learn what crayons are!   Mr. Greg models how to use them.  I model good coloring and scribbling.  We discuss this as I’m doing it.

Then I model how to color a soccer ball.  A soccer ball?!!  UH YEAH!  I chose a soccer ball because it has lots of different sections so you get lots of practice coloring in the lines and using different colors!

You can get your free soccer ball by clicking on the ball!

And we end our first half day with silly hats.  Of course.  You can’t start the year with no silly hat.  That would be just wrong!!!

Who wants a free silly hat?!?!

And we end our first day of kindergarten with cookies!

MMMM Cookies!

We return for another half day on Friday.

We will enter the room the same way as we did on day 1.

Morning meeting will be the same.

We will practice name writing again.

We read First Day Jitters.

And that folks, is our first two half days of kindergarten!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here is a great post with tons of ideas for read alouds for the beginning of the year!

And a great list of procedures for beginning of the year!