Teacher Week and a Prayer

I cannot believe that tomorrow is the first day of school! I am so excited to meet all of my 6th graders and know that we are going to have a great year full of exciting adventures! I am so blessed to be able to do something I love and helping to mold the future at the same time!

This coming week I am also excited to participate in a wonderful blog hop through Blog Hoppin'.

Come back tomorrow to see my first post for the link-up!

I also came across this prayer tonight and wanted to pass it along to all you other teachers out there who are starting the school year tomorrow!

A Teacher’s Prayer

O Lord, Grant me your strength, so I will have COURAGE in every situation;

Grant me your love, so I will NEVER GIVE UP on anybody;

Grant me your wisdom, so I will SHOW others the path to success;

Grant me your mercy; so I will FORGIVE those who have hurt me;

Grant me your peace, so I will FIND THE BEST in everybody;

Grant me your hope, so I will NEVER GIVE UP;

Grant me your joy, so I will be THANKFUL for all my blessings;

And grant me your grace, so you will ALWAYS be at my side.  Amen.

~David Bennett

I Have Butterflies

In my stomach that is. 

It is really hitting me that on Monday I will meet my 53 6th graders that I will get to teach this school year. I have met a handful of them, but for the most part Monday will be the first time that I see many of them. I have so many questions running through my head right now like...

Are they going to like me?

Will they think that I am mean?

What do they think of my classroom, do they like the theme?

Are they going to be bored in my classroom?

Will they mind sitting in tables so that group work can be done easily?

I am really hoping that the first day goes amazingly well, and you can bet I will be blogging about it that evening. In the meantime, for most of you, enjoy your last days of summer and I hope that your school year is absolutely amazing!!!

It Is Almost Here!!!

I cannot believe that the 1st day of school is almost here! It seemed like this day was so far away when I accepted the position, but on my Monday it will all begin! 

Since last Friday, I have had in-service every day. On Monday, which was our first day of all staff in-service, our principal had us meet in the cafeteria and then we got on a bus. I was a little confused at first, but I later discovered that the principal always takes the staff somewhere else for the PD. She took us to the local golf course and we spent the entire day there in the meeting room instead of the cafeteria. It was so much fun and the simple change of scenery made the day that much better. 

Besides the rotations that we went through this morning, and district wide convocation tomorrow morning, the rest of the week is ours. I honestly do not know many schools where they give you that much time to work in your classroom. I am so excited to get lesson plans knocked out hopefully for the first 6 weeks during this week. We will see though. I have a feeling we might get a department meeting or grade level meeting thrown in there somewhere later this week 

Have I mentioned lately just how much I love my campus??? If I haven't...I love it! I cannot imagine working for a better principal and with such great colleagues. I have a feeling that this school year is going to be simply amazing!

View of Room 117

This is a previous post, but today I am linking up with Blog Hoppin' for Where It Goes Down Wednesday! This is day 3 of the teacher week that they are hosting.

 This is my first year teaching and I am teaching 6th grade Language Arts. We are a part of a middle school campus. Welcome to my room!

 the view from the doorway

 this is where I will post schedules and that sort of thing

 students will find their homework posted here and also some parts of speech signs that I made

 my organized classroom library :)

 view from the library

 view from the back of the room

the wooden storage unit is being removed and I am anxiously awaiting for that interactive board to be up in my room

 this is where students will pick up papers when they get to class as well as find graded papers, extra copies, and work when they are absent

 each student will be assigned a number and my teacher aide will put their graded papers in their folder for them to pick up

 my desk area

 view from the window

 my reading strategy signs compliments of the Teacher's Clubhouse

 I love this thing! I am storing picture books that I will use to teach concepts here and also teacher editions of books. Students will turn in their work on top in their correct tub.

 my electronic hole punch and a pencil station (I did not realize how bad the top of the filing cabinet looked though)

 We just had these installed. We will have voicemail!!!

 view from my desk

Luckily the Interactive Board has since been mounted to the wall!

Hope you enjoyed the tour of room 117!

Friday It Begins!

It is so hard to believe that I really begin my first year as a teacher on Friday! Well that is at least when inservice starts for new teachers. My room is finally beginning to look like a classroom after being at camp the past 6 weeks. I took my camera up to the school with me on Sunday, but of course it was dead when I turned it on. Tomorrow we have Tadpole Camp for the incoming 6th graders to get acquainted with their new school. All day Wednesday and Thursday are going to be spent putting my finishing touches on my classroom. I cannot wait to share the pictures with you all!

Enjoy what is left of your summer vacation!

Garage Sale via the Web

I know I have been talking about how I wanted to get rid of some lower elementary resources on the blog that I had collected over the years, and I finally got around to taking pictures of those things today. How this is going to work is that you will need to email me if you are interested in purchasing any of the items. My email is k.e.klohn@gmail.com. You will just pay for the purchase price and I will cover the shipping. Most of these items are barely used and some are brand new. Hopefully you will find something you could use in your classroom. Be sure and let your friends know too!

 Assorted dice, number cubes, and flash cards. $20 for everything in the pictures.- SOLD

 4 sets of magnetic letters, one of each letter. $5 for the all 4.

 Bag of over 200+ foam magnetic letters. $5- SOLD

 Assorted calendar cover-ups. All are complete sets. $1 per set or $10 for everything.

 Tub of centimeter cubes that are still in the original package. $10

 Flashcards $2 for all 3

 2 bingo games that have never been opened $10

 Candy Land and Chutes&Ladders, $8 each or $15 for both together

 Texas resource book, $5

 Big Math Book for 1st and 2nd, $5

 Sanity Savers, $5

 2nd grade workbook, $5

 Reading Graphic Organizers 1st-3rd, $8- SOLD

 Writing Graphic Organizers 1st-3rd, 8

 Math Workbook, $3

 1st grade Test Prep, $5

 I Have Who Has Math Games 1-2, $8

 Addition and Subtraction workbook, $3

 Science Homework Help, $5

 Science Tub Topics, 1-3, $8- SOLD

 Sciencesauraus, $5

 Thinking Activities for Centers, $10

$1

I would also be open to trading materials if you are wanting to share some for the upper grades with me. Looking forward to hearing from you all!

Back To School

I cannot believe that the summer is coming to an end and the school year is quickly approaching. For me the year is going to get underway starting on August 9th when we have Tadpole Camp for the incoming 6th graders. Of course my classroom is no where near ready at this moment and I am not really sure when I am going to have time to do that before the 9th.

Believe it or not, I have managed to at least get the first week of school planned already. I am getting pretty excited about it and am looking forward to doing some new things with my students that they have hopefully not done before in the past. I will be sharing my lesson plan template with you all in the next couple of weeks, more than likely once I am home from camp. 

I have gotten a great response from so many of you all about being pen pals and cannot wait to get it started! I know that my kids are going to have so much fun with it and I am excited to have them write letters since it is something that is forgotten about too often with this generation of kids. I am currently attempting to create some postcards on Vistaprint for my kids to use that are personalized for our class. What sort of things have you all created on Vistaprint for your classroom?

I am also currently obsessed with these crate seats that I found on this blog. Even though I teach 6th grade, I still think my students will love them in the library area where all of the books are housed. 

Pictures of the classroom will be coming soon!