Meet the Teacher Night and Birthday Straws

Is it me or has this week been flying by??? I can't believe it is already Thursday tomorrow! On Monday we had Meet the Teacher Night and I was a little disappointed that I only had 9 of my parents show up. I guess I was a little spoiled last year that I had all of them there. At Meet the Teacher Night I always give the parents a little folder of information that is ONLY kindergarten information (they get a lot of information from the office and I like to keep mine separate in their kindergarten-only folder). In their folder I give them: 
1. Another copy of the list of supplies they need to bring in
2. A copy of our specials schedule
3. A copy of our gradual entry schedule (we do half of the class one day, and the other half the next day. Both of these days are half days and are HEAVENLY!! I could totally get used to teaching a half day kindergarten!)
4. A form for them to fill out on allergies
5. A "Getting to Know Your Child" form where they can tell me things about their child I may need to know- their likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, things they are afraid of, etc.
6. And most importantly- my Back to School ABC's Handout. This is their "cheat sheet" to kindergarten and some of my parents last year kept it all year so they could refer back to it in January if they had forgotten a policy (like what to do for birthdays, field trips, etc).

Here is a picture of the outside cover of one of their folders and a snapshot of the inside:

Also, this has nothing to do with Meet the Teacher Night, but these are the finished products of my birthday straws I will give to my kids:

They turned out a lot better than I expected! I bought the silly straws at Party City, used a Cricut to make the accordion folded circles, a scalloped punch from Michael's for the colored paper on the front and labels from SchoolGirl Style for the middle circles. I spray painted the clay pot and attached a ribbon I already had to the top. I put a few stickers on the pot to spell out "Happy Birthday" and voila! I can't wait for someone to have a birthday so I can start giving them away!! All in all I think the whole project cost me about $15- I was lucky that I already had most of the supplies in my craft basket (which is really two baskets that are overflowing and in desperate need of a third!). They were not hard to do and I was able to knock them all out while sitting on the couch watching a movie. Not too shabby, eh? ;)

Hope you're all having a great week!!

ABC Back-to-School Pamphlet

Hey ya'll, as I get ready to leave for the airport I wanted to send out a little post about one of my best selling products on TPT as it may be VERY helpful to all of you getting ready for back to school. My ABC's of Kindergarten pamphlet is a parent's guide to everything back to school. It has a cute graphic for every letter of the alphabet and a school rule or helpful hint next to each letter. 

For example: A- Arrival:  Students may arrive between 7:15 and 7:55. Late arrivals go to the front office to sign in before being walked to the classroom.

B- Birthdays: Feel free to send in treats for your child’s birthday. Please check food items with me first in case of allergies.

Box tops: Our school is collecting “Box Tops for Education.” Each label is worth 10 cents… it adds up quickly!

It is saved as a Word document and can be easily changed to fit your schools rules. Any elementary grade can use this, especially any of the primary ones. So if you are looking for an easy way to keep your parents informed without overwhelming them, check it out!

Next time I post it will be from Vancouver, British Columbia!! Woohoo!! Expect to be overloaded with pictures!

End of Year ABC Celebration

This year as a little extra something fun for the end of the year, I created an ABC End-of-Year Celebration Calendar. Every day for the last 26 days of school we do something fun to celebrate the end of the school year. It is super fun to do in kindergarten but I feel like it would be fun to do in any of the grades prek-2nd. 

So far our favorite day has been puzzle day. This was the first time in a LONG time i could hear complete silence in my room for more than 5 minutes long!!! They had to concentrate so hard on their puzzles!!

Here is the document:
ABC Calendar

This version is a pdf but I have on my TPT account a word document version in order to make easy changes! Here it is: TPT Calendar

Hope the end of the year is going well for all of you!