First Day of School

There is nothing quite like the first day back to school!  It always reminds me of one of my favorite movies, "You've Got Mail", when Tom Hanks' character tells Meg Ryan that if he knew who she was, he would send her a bouquet of freshly sharpened pencils.  I would LOVE to receive a bouquet of brand new school supplies!  I am a total teacher nerd, I get such a thrill out of buying new pens and crayons and such!  (I hoard boxes of new crayons because I love opening a brand new box and seeing the tips perfectly sharp... Plus, there are TONS of cute crafts to make with crayons on Pinterest!)

This is my first attempt at melted crayon art!
Unfortunately, I made this over summer vacation back home in Illinois,
and then flew back to Florida... I'm hoping my family brings it to me
when they come to visit over Christmas!

Since I am going to be teaching Math and Writing to 2 separate classes, I will normally be switching classes part way through the day.  Today, however, I got to keep my homeroom class to review expectations, rules and procedures.  What a GREAT group of kids I have this year!  I don't want to jinx anything, so I won't rave about their behavior, but they are so sweet.  I took pictures of them all in front of the calendar so we can mark how they grow and change over the course of 1 school year.  I didn't really notice the change in the size of my last class.  It was only when I looked at pictures of them from when we were in 3rd grade that I noticed how much some of them had really changed.

We worked in pairs to come up with example of our school wide SOAR (Safe, Outstanding Citizen, Active Learner, Respectful) expectations.  We decorated All About Me pages and shared them on the document camera.  We even completed a "School is a Breeze When..." Writing prompt that we will turn into wind socks tomorrow!  We were able to get so much accomplished, I couldn't believe it!

Tomorrow will be the first day of switching.  This way I can review my expectations with my afternoon class.  Hopefully they will be equally as wonderful!  I don't have any pictures of finished projects yet.  I'm going to try to get some tomorrow to share.

I know many of you either have already begun school or will be soon, so best of luck to you all for a wonderful, productive school year!