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!!

What I've Been Pinning...

Since I have had more time over our summer break I have fallen back in love with my favorite time waster- PINTEREST! I can spend hours on pinterest easily and not get bored, it is dangerous! It is getting me SOOOO pumped up to go back to school!! I have seen other bloggers posting about their favorite recent pins and I thought I would share with you some of my favorite pins I have seen recently too (just in case ya'll weren't already as pumped up about going back to school as I am!)

I love this adorable idea for a new way to celebrate birthdays. Instead of giving out another pencil (our front office gives out pencils too) you can give out a crazy straw with a cute little birthday sign attached to it. They look so adorable and the kids will love just them!

This adorable center is a much better way for me to use my super cheap magnetic letters than what I had been doing. Last year I found some magnetic letters in the dollar section at Target and they were not very strong magnets. I had my students use them on the chalkboard (which is magnetic in case ya'll didn't know that, and yes.... I still have a CHALKBOARD in the back of the room!! Chalkboards still exist!) Anyway, the magnets were not very strong and kept falling off the board when my little ones were trying to spell their sight words. This way, on a cookie sheet that is laying down, we don't have to worry about them falling off!

This one I love because it will help me to make my hideous file cabinets less ugly AND functional! I am super excited about that!!

And this one may be my favorite just because of how adorable it is! What a cute way to make your pocket chart center fun! It is so simple, but adds so much! 

Now my only problem with pinterest is that there are too many cute classroom decorating ideas. Just when I think I have found the perfect theme for next year, another even cuter one comes along! My current love is the rainbow theme from below:

I love the double border around the cloud background paper and the beautiful tissue paper pom poms! I am just loving the tissue paper pom poms I am seeing all over pinterest lately. I saw tissue paper pom poms in this classroom below too and loved them:

Now with all of these super cute ideas I've found the only problem is going to be finding the time to make all of it!! I am leaving for a cruise to Alaska on Thursday and will be gone for two weeks (woohoo!) but when I come back it is right back to school! I may have to put my mom and sisters to work with helping me :)

Have a great day ya'll!