The Almost Alarm That Never Was

3-2-1.... It's here!

T'was the before school, and where did summer go?!? Our first day of school is tomorrow and I have butterflies like a little kindergartener! As long as I teach, I don't think that will change. I'm always nervous for that first moment that I'm in my classroom with all my new students and I have to start everything from scratch. All the procedures, the rules, the routines... I long for that day about a month or so down the road... You know! That day when I will look around the room and realize with a smile that my classroom has gotten to the point that it can mostly run without me (besides that tiny little part called the teaching, of course, haha!). I'm sure you all know that moment :).

So today I ALMOST did something that would have been oh so terrible! I was working in my classroom like a good little teacher (I know, it's a holiday, shame shame....but I'm sure I'm not the only one!) My school building is still on summer hours until tomorrow when the school year janitor comes back to work. When he's back the building will be  open until 10:00 P.M. But since it's still summer hours, it's open until 5:00 P.M. every day. Usually. So it's about 4:15 and I'm just bopping along to my radio finishing the set up of my classroom economy materials when all of the sudden I had a minor (ok, major) freak out. Wait a second. It's a holiday. That means that church employees aren't here today. That means the building might already be empty and the security system armed for the night! OhMyGoodnessGracious. So I frantically grabbed my purse and my computer, slammed the door to my classroom shut, ran down the hall and two flights of stairs and came to a screeching halt in front of the security system box. OH NO. It was already armed and I was trapped inside. Well, kind of. I was already playing out two different scenarios in my head: one where I played dumb and just walked out anyway as the building is surrounded with police, and another where I had to sheepishly call my principal and tell her I was still in the school building with the alarm armed and could she please give me the code so she didn't have to drive all the way to the school just to get me out.... Ugh. I quickly shot down my first idea and was about to execute the second when I had an aha! moment, or memory as it was, of one of the teachers a year ago telling me she had a code for the security system. So I quickly dialed her praying she would answer..............

Are you all on the edges of your seats now? I'm sure you are, hahahaha.... In any case, thankfully she DID answer and DID remember the code and because the security system happens to be the same as the one we have in our house, I knew how to use it, too. Crisis averted. So much excitement on my supposed day off! :)

And as the school year gets off and running, September Currently with Farley's Oh Boy 4th Grade:

You know that school is in session when...

... when my living room floor looks like this:

Yes, I pretty much spent my whole day cutting out things I laminated. Such is the life of a teacher, huh?  Here's the finished product of everything I cut out:

So much fun, right? I'm so super excited about my theme/color choice for my 6th graders this year! I'll give a sneak peak of what some of these things are starting to look like in my classroom. This is a sampling of open house night:

I had there workbooks sitting out on their desks and ready for them when they arrived at open house.

I also had a couple forms for them to fill out: safety patrols, permission to be featured on our classroom website, and "help me get to know your child" survey for the parents. I also had a fun little ice breaker activity for the kids ready to take home and prepare for the first day (It's in the Bag activity courtesy of Clutter Free Classroom). Then, I gave each girl a flower that matches the flower kissing balls we have hanging in our room and attached a free pass for a night of no homework. That was a big hit with all the girls at the open house!!

Then I labeled and color coded these baskets (which made me really haha) with a place to turn in each of the forms. 

.... This week is Open House Week on TBA (Teaching Blog Addict), so I'm linking up with them to share! Go check it out... 

Open House...Check!

All right the race to begin the year is almost complete!

Today was our Open House so I got to meet all of new students (or re-meet, as was the case for many of them). My 6th grade class this year is a class of 14 GIRLS, NO BOYS, CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT? And no, it is not an all girls school, it just happened to work out that way! Which made it really fun for decorating the classroom this year because I totally turned it into like a girl's clubhouse :). The girls all seem just great. Two of them are the daughters of teachers at my school, and two of them are the older sisters of two of my 2nd grade students from last year so that's kind of fun!!

I promise that pictures of the completed classroom are coming, but believe it or not, even though Open House is over the room is not completely done yet. Not for lack of trying, believe me! I ordered a few VistaPrint items (as I talked about earlier) and unfortunately they just didn't arrive in time :(.Of course, irony of all ironies, there was a VistaPrint shipment waiting for me when I arrived home today AFTER the Open House. I'm super excited about it and even though we have a 4 day weekend now before classes begin, I think I'm going to go in tomorrow to finish everything up quick! I'll give you a peek at the items I made on VistaPrint:

So the one on the right is the poster I talked about in my last post about Monday Made It. The poster on the left is going to be used in the classroom economy I am setting up this year. Not sure how well you can see it in this picture, but it says "Bank of Hoxmeier Payroll". I got this idea from Stephanie at Teaching in Room 6. I have some little pockets I am going to put on it to use for the classroom jobs in the economy.

The left notepad is says "We missed you while you were gone. Here's what YOU missed". The top business card says "Bank of Hoxmeier Deposit Slip". Also for the classroom economy, and I have to give credit to Stephanie for this, too! Definitely check out her blog :). The bottom business card says "Thanks for making a "paws"itive impact" and I plan on using them to right quick good news tidbits to parents about things that happen during the school days. I'm going to staple them in the student planner when a student receives one on the day it was received!

Such simple little creations, but so fun! Do you have any favorite ways to use VistaPrint in the classroom?

Monday Made It

Exhaustion. 

The kids haven't even arrived yet, and I am so absolutely exhausted it's unbelievable. Somehow I always seem to make everything more work than it needs to be, you know? I was so inspired by all the blogs I have been reading to make my classroom super organized and super cute, and it's definitely getting there, but ever so S-L-O-W-L-Y.

I just keep telling myself only a few more days of this, because Open House is on Thursday so everything has to be ready by then! Ha. And I know in the long run I will be happy with all of the work I am putting in right now. 

But seriously.

My husband just came downstairs to see what I was doing after leaving me to finish watching a show upstairs about an hour ago and when he got down he just looked at me slumped over my computer with bewilderment and said, "Have you even moved?" And the answer to that question of course was no. I haven't made it past the kitchen island since I got home today. That's how you can tell summer really is over.....

Exhaustion.

So I'm trying to remember that eventually everything always gets done (duh, hehe!), and in order to keep my motivation high I decided to post here about something fun and finally show off a Monday Made-It. 

If you can't tell, I work in a Catholic school. This is a poster I made on Vistaprint and just ordered for the prayer corner in my classroom. It is one of my favorite quotes and even though it's super simple, I'm pretty excited about it! 

There you have it, my (finally) Monday Made-It. And if you haven't checked out Vistaprint before, believe me, you definitely should! I've been using it for a couple years now and just LOVE it :). 

Back to School Jitters

Okay, so I know I already posted once today, I found this linky party for back to school jitters being hosted by Jessica at A Turn To Learn and I just felt compelled to post again because we all have back to school jitters!

Here are the rules for the Linky Party:
1. Put your text over the picture to talk about your back to school jitters!
2. Use the HTML code to link back to the linky party!
3. Comment on the two blog posts before yours!

The VERY MUCH "BEFORE" Pictures

Do you know that feeling when you work, work, work, all day at school and then feel like you got nothing done?

I went into my classroom yesterday as I said I was going to (yay me for following through!) and worked for about seven hours straight. And even though I worked for what seemed liked forever, when I went to flip off the lights as I walked out at the end of the day, I couldn't help feeling a bit defeated at not quite seeing the progress I had hoped for :(... I really DID get a lot done, there was just so much left behind by the teacher who worked in the room before me, that I haven't gotten to any of the fun stuff yet! I took some "before" pictures so you could all see what I was dealing with when I moved in...

Ok so here it is. Believe it or not, the only things I have actually brought into this classroom are the boxes on the round table, the box of stacking cubes sitting against that desk in the middle of the room, and the computer and papers sitting on the desk. Seriously. Otherwise, this how the room was left. It really is a great room, and the teacher who was in here was really ver organized, but she hadn't originally planned on retiring and didn't take much of anything with her when she left. If you stick with me for the after pictures, I PROMISE it will look really super cute when I'm done! All the chairs, desks, and tables are moved to their proper places for starters...

That cubbie area in the back is quickly turning into my cozy little reading nook and space for my CAFE board. That giant file cabinet is not gone and replaced with much smaller and neater cabinet that sits next to my desk (which by the way, is now on the other side of the room). The circular table is now gone and replaced with a kidney-like table that I dragged in from the room I had last year and the rectangular table sitting in the back cubby area has been moved out and put along the side wall to be used in our writing center. 

I do love all the windows and the big beautiful tree outside my room!

Did you notice all the fabric covering the bulletin boards and shelves and all the posters on the walls? Those are all gone now, too. Just taking all those down (and then the papers, borders, etc.) behind the fabric and organizing the materials on the shelves took me a few hours in itself. But I did find some treasures! The teacher left behind 30 matching clear shoebox containers!!!! It's like Christmas, right? She also left behind some fun games and things to used for indoor recess, so that was kind of exciting. I also started going through everything left in the two closets in the back of the room and got rid of all the containers that didn't match and old manipulatives and activities that I knew I didn't need or wouldn't use. 

So what does that leave me with you might ask? Well... completely blank walls and bulletin boards, empty closets and shelves, and a few books, boxes, and files sitting on the ground. So not much. But better than what I started with, I'm at least super happy to have a blank slate because I am SO DETERMINED to stay organized all year. OH! I do at least have my classroom arrangement done :). I should have taken a picture as I was leaving to show the improvement, but I forgot. I'm hoping to have it organized by the end of next week, so I guess you will have to wait until then :).

The one thing I can brag about is all my beautiful window and this view!! Look past that tree, and that is Lake Minnetonka! Not sure how familiar any of you are with Minnesota, but around here Lake Minnetonka is a pretty big deal. 

What's your favorite part about your classroom?