Whether summer break has started for you or not, here are my 10 end of year must dos for finishing the year strong – and yes – even prepping to make the start of next year a little less stressful.  I hope these tips will be helpful for you as you finish out this school year (or next)!

1.  Restock assessment materials for beginning of the year.
This is a true sanity saver!  When you finish up your Fountas & Pinnell (F&P), DRA, DIBELS, or whatever other assessments you use go ahead and do yourself a favor and make your copies for next year.  Nothing is worse than feeling prepped for back to school, then sitting down for your first F&P assessment only to find you don’t have any copies of the Level D Fiction book in your folder – btw its The Nice Little House (that skunk is pretty smart if you ask me).

2.  Take pictures of your room.
I recommend doing this twice during the end of year season.First, take pictures of your classroom setup BEFORE you start taking things down and putting things in storage.  This will help a TON when you go back next August to set your classroom up because you can look at the pictures and remember exactly where everything goes.  And, if you’re like me, you can look at them over the summer when you’re trying to figure out what you want to change next year.Then, take pictures AFTER you have stored everything.  These are super important for keeping an “inventory” of your items.  If your school, or even your classroom, are used for any summer school or activities you will thank yourself for having these pictures in case anything grows a pair of legs and walks off.

3.  Write thank you notes.
There are so many people that work hard to make a school function.  Admin, teachers, custodians, maintenance crew, the list can go on.  How often do you thank these people for all of the work they put into making your school function correctly?  Take a moment to have your kids (and yourself) write a thank you note to them!

A great way to get your kids a small end of the year gift without breaking the bank is to save your Scholastic points throughout the year from book orders.  If you don’t use Scholastic book orders in your class, do yourself a HUGE favor and sign up [here] immediately!

Every year I gift my students The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf.  The message of the story is one that is so powerful I feel every child should hear it.  And thanks to Scholastic, I gift it for FREE!

If you don’t have a class copy, again I highly recommend this book!

I personally think books make the best gifts.  I’ve given trinkets in the past, but love the meaning behind a book.  However, give what works best for you and your kids!

5.  Pin some ideas for next year.

Many teachers need to shut their brains off from teaching when summer break hits.  Take that time.  Whether its a few days, weeks, or months – you know what you need.  Before you head out for summer break spend a little time on [Pinterest] saving some ideas for next year.  One of my favorite things is finding new ways to revamp stale routines, strategies, or ideas and add in new best practices.  Pinterest is a gold mine for these types of ideas.  Here are a few of my favorite boards you can snag some ideas from.

6.  Clean, clean, and clean some more.
Let’s face it.  We start the year with perfectly manicured classrooms, everything is in order and CLEAN.  Add 20 children and fast forward 180 days.  How’s that room looking now?  More importantly, how clean is that room?  I’ll be the first to say that despite great intentions, as the year goes on things become disheveled – and often dirty.Take some time to clean before heading out to summer break.  You will thank yourself when you come back in August.  Want a little bonus tip?  Have your kids help!You can fill large containers/bins with warm, soapy water and dump toys, manipulative, whatever else that needs cleaning into it.  Let the kids go to town “playing” in the water.  They LOVE it!  We’ll just keep the fact that they’re actually helping us clean a little secret.

7.  Add behavior incentives (as needed).
If you have one of those classes that is well-behaved all the time, even at the and of the year – I hate you.    Ok… I didn’t mean that.  However, I am jealous.For the rest of us who have kiddos that seem to “forget” how to be in school, here’s a tip for you.  Every year I have taught I have used an end of the year countdown as a behavior incentive.  Each day we pop a balloon and earn the reward inside.  Yes, I said earn.  The kiddos don’t always get the incentive if behavior is not on point.  You can read more about how I set up my countdown [here].

8.  Keep kids engaged.
This ties directly into the behavior management that I mentioned above.  If your kids aren’t engaged, especially at the end of the year, kiss your classroom management strategies goodbye.  Nothing is worse than a group of kids who are flat out bored.One thing that I did this year to keep kids engaged until the last day was an animal PBL unit.  The kids picked an animal to become experts on during our animal unit.  During the last week or so of school the kids spent a ton of time building a virtual zoo exhibit on Book Creator, then actually building an exhibit.  Students voice and student choice for the win!  More to come on that unit later!

9.  Reflect, reflect, reflect.
Take even a few minutes to think about what went well this year, what could be better, what you will keep, and what needs to go.  Jot a few notes down somewhere that you can refer back to them (even if that’s in August).  And don’t forget – be honest.  This is a time to grow and become a better educator.

My reflection of the year can be found [here].

10.  Enjoy your last bit of time with your kids!
If I can ask you to do one thing during the end of the year, its this…  Please, please, please don’t resort to just showing the kids movies.  It break my heart when I see teachers posting that movies are all they are doing the last few days.  Yes you’re tired, yes the kids are tired, yes you probably have 0 patience and energy left.But, dig deep.Figure out what you can do to have fun with your kids and “be in the moment.”  Enjoy your last bit of time with your kids, hug them goodbye on the last day, and collapse in a heap on the floor.

It’s summer break!

I’ve officially survived rocked my third year of teaching!  

Excuse me while I shake the glitter out of my hair.

I can’t believe it has already been 3 years since I began my journey teaching.  And it has already been 2 years since I walked across the stage with this fantastic group of people.  Time flies!

Now that we’ve gotten the celebrations out of the way, I thought it would be nice to share my honest reflections after my third year of teaching.  I’m going to share it all – the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The Good

After feeling fairly frustrated with teaching (yes after two years) with all of the red tape, standardized testing, and other hoops to jump through I knew that I had to find my happy place.  For those of you who may not know, I unexpectedly left my teaching position during my second year of teaching to move to another school/district.

Trust me, I had a great reason, and you can read more about that [here].

That was the best decision I have ever made for my career – well besides going to grad school maybe.  By standing up for what I believe in I landed a job at my dream school.  The mister calls it Hogwarts…  And it truly is a magical place.  A school that values learning through play, project-based learning, developing the social-emotional aspect of children, has a chicken coop as well as a cow, pig, and goats, and I could go on, and on.  It’s a great feeling to know that I’ve found my place in education.

A surprising reflection from this year is the reduction in stress.  I was honestly so nervous to enter the world or private school, and I felt that I was going to be overwhelmed with pressure and helicopter parents.  I was wrong.  Yes, there was pressure, but what job is without pressure?  However the pressure was never like it was before – get your objectives posted by 7:30 AM, make sure you are working to prepare your First Grade students for the STAAR test, ensure that your children work at least 20 minutes EVERY DAY on the Istation reading program – none of that nonsense.  And the parents?  They’ve been fantastic.

This year I stepped out of my comfort zone and planned not one, but two project-based learning units.  I’ll be honest, I had never even heard of project-based learning before this year.  I think the units went well overall – but in reflection I know that I will do a bit more pre-planning for the units next year so that I can sit back and enjoy the ride.

I feel like I rocked math centers this year.  I finally have found a good balance of whole-group math lessons and game-based centers.  I saw huge growth, the kids had fun, and I can now say I’ve taught Everyday Math.  We adopt the latest version next year, so fingers are crossed it continues to be game based.

The Bad Not So Good

This was my first year diving into the writing world of Lucy Calkins.  While I have grown an appreciation for her approach to teaching writing, I know that this was not my strongest suit this year.  Looking back I remember having an “oh $#%@” moment and realizing my kids had not progressed quite to where they should be at that point.  We put things into overdrive, and I feel confident my kiddos are ready for First Grade – but I will definitely be looking/reading more about her methodology for next year.

Moving to a new school can always be challenging for forming relationships.  I landed on a great team, but I feel like we didn’t really get to know each other (much less teachers in other grade levels).  My goal next year is to branch out and get to know more of the teachers.

In trying to learn the ropes at a new school, I feel like I let my identity as a teacher with autonomy go somewhat.  No I didn’t become some robotic alien, as exciting as that may have been.  I guess this one is hard for me to put into words.  So lets just say that I plan on making sure that my voice/vision is apparent in my classroom a little more next year.

The Ugly Surprisingly Humbling

My school believes in handmade/teacher-made classroom materials.  No I don’t mean to say that we go into a woodworking shop and build our own supply caddies and whittle pencils from sticks…  Rather my school likes to see very little to no worksheets – and anything that may even be slightly thought of as a worksheet should have been made by the teacher.  We also don’t use a lot of cutesy stuff from teacher supply stores to decorate our classrooms.  In fact the only thing hanging on a wall in my room that is from a teacher store is the background for the calendar (yet the students make the actual calendar pieces each month) and a pocket chart for keeping track of days in school.

This was a hard pill to swallow as I embarked on my exciting new journey.  Here I am, Teachers Pay Teachers author, and my school doesn’t use worksheets or pages with lots of cute clip art.  Surprisingly this made me feel less pressure as I went through the year.  I didn’t have to spend time adding borders and clip art to anything I was making for class.  I didn’t have to spend loads of money buying borders, punch out letters, or poster.  I didn’t have to spend hours creating bulletin boards (because only student work goes on the walls – it is their classroom after all).  And guess what?  My kids still learned.

Do I plan to continue creating for TpT?  Of course.  My vision for what I can create has just been broadened.  And I’m very, very excited to begin creating more products that would still be acceptable at my school as well as others.

Thank you to my friend Greg over at [The Kindergarten Smorgasboard] for posting your reflections and inspiring me to do the same!

I was fortunate enough to be asked to teach at our early childhood summer camp.  The hours are great and it’s been a TON of fun (and heck, the pay doesn’t hurt either)!  When I got the e-mail asking, I jumped at the opportunity to meet some of the kiddos that I’ll have next year and get acclimated to my new school.

Today I thought I’d share some of the fun art activities that we’ve completed over the past 2 weeks.  Some activities tie to specific pieces of children’s literature, some tie directly to specific artists, while others are just plain FUN!   And yes, I know these were completed during a summer camp – but I’m a firm believer that teachers should build art into instruction (once a week during specials for most children is simply not enough to cultivate an appreciation and understanding for art).  These ideas could also be fun for your own children over summer break. 

First up was our introduction to pointillism and Georges Seurat.

We looked at some art books from the library that featured work from Georges Seurat then watched a quick video clip about him.  Let me introduce you to Art with Mati and Dada!  These videos are short, about 7 minutes, and make learning about artists accessible to even the youngest kiddos!

After learning about pointillism, it was time for the kiddos to try their hands at this style of art!  We used q-tips and tempura paint to create our own masterpieces.  I think they came out absolutely adorable.  This one just stole my heart!

Next on our plans for exploring art was to create bowls using paper maché mix.  I wanted to try something a little more exciting for the kiddos than paper, so we used yarn!

I found a gluten-free paper maché mix at Michael’s (this was important as I did have a couple kiddos with gluten allergies).  I wrapped plastic wrap around plastic bowls from Dollar Tree and taped it down to make it easier to get the yarn bowls off later.  The kiddos spent time dipping yarn of their choice into the paper maché mixture and wrapping it around the bottom and sides of bowls.  I recommend using yarn that is 100% cotton because it absorbs the paper maché mixture better than synthetic yarns.  It took about 2 days to completely dry, but they turned out so awesome!

With all of our focus on art, the kiddos were hungry to learn about a new artist.  They were also just plain hungry!  We needed edible art!

Jackson Pollock is known for his drip style of painting.  I thought it would be fun to have the kiddos try their hand at drip painting using icing and popcorn!  To make the icing, use powdered sugar and add water until you get a smooth consistency (a little more on the liquid side makes the drip painting easier).  We used 4 cups of powdered sugar and probably 1/2 cup of water and that was more than enough for 20 kiddos!

Of course there is another fantastic Art with Mati and Dada video for Jackson Pollock.

An unexpected work of art appeared as we worked on drip painting our popcorn.  I had previously laid butcher paper on the table to aid in clean-up, and as the kiddos moved between the icing cups and popcorn the butcher paper was dripped on.  It ended up looking pretty cool, and the kiddos were so excited when they realized what had happened!

Continuing with our food-art theme from the previous day, we learned about Wayne Thiebaud.

Wayne Thiebaud is an artist most commonly known for paintings of common objects, including food!  We looked through an art book to see some examples of Wayne’s work.  Then, we got our hands dirty with puffy paint!

To make puffy paint, mix equal parts white glue and shaving cream.  I let the kiddos add drops of food coloring to create whatever color they’d like.  This was a nice departure from your typical “painting” by adding in some texture and a 3-D aspect.  FYI these took a couple of days to completely dry.

Moving on with texture, we discussed how some art may be smooth, bumpy, rough, etc.

The kiddos created art on sandpaper using crayons.  When they were done, we used an iron to transfer the picture to a piece of a paper.  I think the kids were pretty amazed with the picture transferring, and only the crayon on the raised surfaces of the sandpaper transfers so it makes almost a pointillism style copy.

To wrap up our fun 2 weeks of art, the kids made picture frames out of popsicle sticks.  I know, not the most creative thing in the world – but it was something new for them and you can’t go wrong with a classic!

To make these, use 8 popsicle sticks and white glue.  I had a variety of decorations for the kids to add – stickers, beads, pom poms, markers, etc.

Before I printed the pictures I added each kid’s name and Fun Camp 2015.  Who knew that you could still have pictures printed at Walgreens??  I haven’t printed pictures in years!

These are a super cute gift for the kiddos to take home to their parents.

I hope these ideas will helpful for you during the school year, or even over the summer with your own kiddos!

It’s been an interesting ride, for sure!

Why not celebrate the last day with a 5 for Friday linky party?!  Today I’m linking up with [DoodleBugs] to share five random things from the past week.

 We’ve been having a blast popping the balloons to reveal a surprise for each day.  Today is bubble day – shhhh, don’t tell!

You can read more about this end of year countdown [here].

We wrapped up our unit on Eric Carle this week.

After reading A House for Hermit Crab, we had to make our own hermit crabs!

This craft is super simple and requires NO printing!

The kiddos traced their hands on red construction paper (this is the hermit crabs’ head/body).

Then we glued a small paper plate on (this is the hermit crabs’ shell).

We used a black crayon to add eyes, antennae, and a swirl on the shell.

Then the kiddos got to go to town with the watercolors to add details!

BTW say a little prayer that our butterflies come out of their cocoons today!!!  We reviewed butterfly life cycles with The Very Hungry Caterpillar, then got a chance to watch our own caterpillars grow – but these little ones need to hurry up so my kiddos can see them before summer break!

I’m excited for some relaxation, but I’m really going to miss this group of kiddos.  And, I’ve already got several PD sessions & meetings with my new Kindergarten team planned over the summer – so I’ll still be fairly busy.

Since we’re down to to our last 2 weeks together, it was time to get our end of year countdown going!

I blogged about this idea [last year], but wanted to share it again because it has been one of my most popular blog posts.  Plus, I’ve updated the FREEBIE that goes with it.

The whole idea behind this countdown is that it’s super visual, and FUN!  Each day we pop a balloon to reveal the secret message inside.  Each message contains a fun activity for the day (most of them free).

Here’s a look at what we will be doing each day:

(9) Stinky Feet Day

(8) Write in Ink Pens

(7) Shaving Cream Day

(6) Sunglasses (to go with our field day)

(5) Marker Day

(4) Dance Party

(3) Sidewalk Chalk

(2) Bubble Gum Day

(1) Bubbles Day

If you use a countdown like this, be sure to lay out what you will be doing each day and write them down (or take a picture like I did).  Otherwise you run into my rookie mistake last year of not remembering what is in each balloon.  That fiasco led to me popping all of the balloons one day after school and re-creating the whole countdown – not so fun.

To get the little messages inside the balloons, simply fold them up and slide them into the balloon, then fill with air.  So easy!

The kids really are so excited to pop the balloon each day and see what fun is in store.  It’s also nice because I don’t pop ours until midway through the day, so if behavior is slipping it’s a nice tool to have for redirecting kiddos.

If you’d like a copy of the cards that I use, you can download it [here].  This is a completely redesigned version of last years’ countdown cards.  These cards are ink friendly and can be printed on fun colors!

Hey y’all!  I was just thinking the other day that it has been so long since I linked up with [Miss DeCarbo] for a Wordless Wednesday post – so let’s fix that!

 

 

This week we are knee deep in STAAR testing, and my mind has really began to wander to faraway places… Like summer.  We still have 33 days, but we are definitely in the home stretch, and I am looking forward to recharging this summer!

 



 

 

 

What happens in Mexico… ends up on my blog!  Ok maybe it’s not a common saying, but today’s post is all about my trip to Riviera Maya.  Disclaimer:  I am not so good awful at taking pictures, especially while on vacation so there are only a few!  Furthermore, this post has absolutely NOTHING to do with teaching!

These little guys were EVERYWHERE!  They’re called coatimundi (coati for short).  They really remind me of a cross between a raccoon and an anteater…  Come to find out they actually are members of the raccoon family!  The babies were just so cute!  The pictures of the bigger one were actually taken right outside our room’s deck.  He came right up to the concrete slab!  

I didn’t get any pictures of the big iguanas, but they were everywhere also.

I’m linking up with Christina from [Sugar and Spice] for a Wordless Wednesday post before I get busy getting things prepped for the trip!

First, a throwback to a Mexico trip a few years ago.  I actually stayed at the same resort that the mister and myself are going to this time.  My friends and I went to a Grease show at the resort one evening, and yes, we were those LOUD people who got pulled onto the stage to dance with the cast at the end of the show.  So fun!

As you can see by my suitcase, I have quite a bit of packing to do today!  I always put it off to the last minute – it’s just one of those things that I can’t do in advance.  You can’t see it in the picture, but the tags from our last flight are still on the suitcase (a little superstition of mine).  They can’t be taken off until we get the news tags at the airport!

I’ll be back next week with a post all about our Mexico adventure!  Until then, what is your favorite summer vacation spot?

Since it’s Friday, I’m linking up with DoodleBugs for her 5 for Friday linky (what else would I be doing on a Friday??)  Here’s my 5 random things from this week…

If you follow the First Grade Stampede Facebook, you had a chance to get this a Freebie earlier this week!  If you don’t follow the FB page already, you can head [this way].

These will go perfect with the digraph sticks that I made a couple of weeks ago.  You can check out how I made them [here].

Happy Friday y’all!  Head over to [DoodleBugs] to check out some other 5 for Friday posts!

After we finished both season of Orange is the New Black, we moved onto House of Cards.  LOVED, LOVED, LOVED it!!! Could most certainly be my new favorite show!  Unfortunately, we have finished both season of House of Cards, and now we need a new show to occupy our time.  Please give me some suggestions!!