First Week!

My goodness!  I apologize for all but disappearing for awhile there.  You may have heard that it is back to school season…

We had our first day on Tuesday and gosh, it has been an amazingly exciting AND exhausting experience.   My new little friends are adorable and eager to learn!  They are also very naive and clueless as to what we do at school, so this week was spent teaching, reinforcing, and reteaching first grade routines and habits.  I put a lot of planning into this and it is turning out so very well.  Thank goodness my summer nightmares of classroom chaos haven’t come true yet.

 On the first day my school had a little photo op. out front.  It was kind of really awesome.  And kind of really awkward.  Not knowing what to do with my hands, this is me awkwardly holding Oliver Twist… 

Anywho, I’m feeling pretty good about life so far.  As to my classroom, it is turning out pretty well although I do have a few loose ends to tie up here and there.  I probably always will.  There is always something to improve, but for the most part I’m loving the functionality of my room this year.  I looked at 14 trillion Pinterest pictures and about that many teacher blogs to figure out what elements I wanted in my calendar area.  

I also knew that I needed to make my personal teacher space as functional and as comfortable and as true-to-Bethany as possible.  So here it is.

This right here is my favorite little corner of my room.  It is a little bit of home for me.  A cozy lamp from Target {here}, a picture of my dear husband, Yankee fragrance spheres {here}, my favorite lotions EVER {here}, my reminder to keep calm and sane and that it is not the end of the world {here}, and of course some Cherry Coke.  

I was a pretty extensive planner this summer, but I could never quite decide on a classroom job chart that I loved and that would work perfectly for my room.  Yesterday I realized I’d better get that up in my room soon or I would loose order (and sanity) very quickly.  So I got out my jumbo glue stick and threw one together.  Easy. 

I got a white poster, some little crayon die cuts from Walmart, these cute little pockets {here} and a sharpie.  

Piece of cake. Click here for my “Class Jobs” header, if you’re interested.

Alrightsy, there is a tiny glimpse into my classroom this week.  Hopefully I can tie up my loose ends soon and post more pictures!  Until then, have a beautiful and most relaxing weekend!