Jen's Notebook

This time of year is so hard to plan. The kids are ready for summer vacation and I am having a hard time holding their attention. We have 15 days left and they are counting them down. So I have my check list of things to finish the year and I am counting down with them. I found a great idea on Pinterest. I bought each of my students a pail and shovel (at Michaels with a 25% off your entire purchase coupon). All of their end of the year paper work such as report cards, pictures, testing grades, etc… goes into the pail and home with them for summer. This is the first year I am trying this out but I love the idea. Enjoy the last remaining days of your school year to the fullest.

Making a classroom gift for my students to take home on Mothers Day is sometimes hard. I want a gift to be hand made yet there are not a lot of ideas that I have found that a Kindergartner can make and take home to their mom. Of  course I am also looking for a cost effective gift as well. This year we made a flower card that I found the pattern for on the Michaels website and a foam magnet for the frig. I bought all the supplies at the Dollar Store. My teacher friends and I love the dollar store! The problem is I don’t feel these are very original, and I love original. So any ideas would be so welcome! I hope you have a wonderful Mothers Day and if you have a school aged child, they bring home a unique, fun gift for you this year. 🙂

My best friend thinks I have an addition. I know, your thinking it’s garage sales because of the title of this entry. But no!!! It’s buying things for my classroom and students. She says I spend way to much of my money on things for my students. There is no doubt that she is right. But, as all teachers, I want to give my kids a fun learning environment with as many of the extras as I can. And if you want your students to have the extras, your childes teacher has to buy them. With huge cutbacks in education, the expectation is that teachers will buy all the extras (and a lot of the essentials) themselves. Is this right? Of course not! But I am still constantly going to garage sales, the Dollar Store, Clearance Sales, etc. and buying things for my students to use in class. And I would bet if we took a poll of teachers in America, we would find that I am by no means the only teacher giving back. Teachers love what we do and we put ours hearts and our pocketbooks into our work. Happy Sunday!!!

I received the cutest gift today from one of my students. A bag full of Smarties with a note from her that said “Thank You for making me a Smartie!” It was adorable and even more adorable  was after she gave it to me and she added, “Teacher, there’s enough Smarties for you to share with all of us at snack time. I counted!” 🙂 She made my day!!!

I have to wonder why it is that I always wait until Sunday afternoon to get my little things done for my classroom the next week. Is it just me? Let me give you an example of my afternoon for today. I need to go to the store and buy potting soil, Marigold seeds, and fake flowers for our Mother’s day gifts (which mind you, we are planting the flowers tomorrow), I need to make an example of the small book I am making in the classroom, I  need to read a chapter for tomorrow’s book study, and I need to finish retyping my portion of a new assessment for our grade level at school. Mind you I could of done some of these things earlier in the week on my way home from work, or before dinner, but no I always wait to rush around while I am doing my laundry and cooking dinner to finish these things up? Is this normal?  Probably!!! So, what ever  last minute things you are doing today to get ready for your new work week, I hope you will allow your self at least one or more fun, frivolous moment in the mix. Have a great Sunday!

I’ve often wondered why kids seem to be more distracted by Valentines Day than even Christmas. A fellow teacher thinks it is because most of the Valentine Day  celebration is at school. Where the Christmas celebration takes place as a big event at home. I like her theory, because I just can’t seem to find any other reason!!! So, next week will be interesting as we celebrate not only Valentine’s day but our 100th day of school both in one week. It’s a good thing the President’s Day holiday follows this week. I will need the rest!

While I have been snowed in for a few days now. No school, no shopping, and lots of time. SO I have finally added some new pictures to several of my pages. I also added a new page, X-tra Fun! I have put a few art projects on the page so far, I will add more after I can finally get back into my classroom when the snow melts! Hope where ever you are, you are enjoying your winter weather and staying safe!

Well, it’s the last day of my winter vacation and I am running around like a mad person trying to put away my Christmas decorations and get ready all the little things I need done for my classroom of kiddos tomorrow! Why is it in my nature to wait until the last minute???? Oh well, I seem to do my best work then. Enjoy your first week back at school with your students!

I am always on the look out for great websites and places to find ideas to help me in the classroom. This one is great. Pinterest.com If you haven’t tried it yet, you should. You do need to to ask for an invitation, and it took about four to five days for them to invite me on to their website, but it was while worth it. You can find ideas for all kinds of charts, art projects, book ideas, etc. And you not only get to share your favorite ideas from the web but you have a great venue to save your ideas for future use as well. Hope you enjoy it!

Happy New Year! Every year on January 1st I start to get a little bit nervous. Half of the school year is now over, have I taught them enough? How can I get even more information into their Kindergarten brains? What could I have done differently this year to develop better understanding for my students? And so on, and so on. . . I wonder if every teacher out there feels this way. The stakes are so high in our profession.  Gone are the days when  students could come to school as little blank slates and we filled in all the gaps. Yet many of them still show up on that first day of Kindergarten without  knowing all their colors, any letters or numbers. Filling in the blanks while pushing the students who come into Kindergarten ready has become the name of the game for education.

So I will go back this week as I do each year in January worried about if I have pushed enough this year so far and how I can push them to learn even more in the second half of the  school year. I hope each of you will have a wonderful second half of the year. Be proud of what you do, we are shaping the future and we are darn good at it!!!!