Sad week for our elementary school

This has been such a sad week for our community. One of our first graders passed away from complications from H1N1 flu. Our school has been closed for a week. It's scary to me that there are not enough vaccines to go around. Please parents, keep your children home if they are sick. If they have flu-like symptons take them to see a Dr. Hold your children tight and love them....they are so precious!

So, today was the first full day of the teacher workweek. I've been teaching for over 20 years but I never feel ready....especially when your first day consists of meetings all day & all you want to do is work in your classroom. I'm just feeling really overwhelmed tonight & I consider myself to be organized. I know this will pass and once the students come next week things will fall into place, but I'm just in that overwhelmed place right now. Any other teachers feel that way?

What a fun week....getting my classroom ready and having a chance at a giveaway from Teaching Heart each day! Today's prize is a gift basket..Who doesn't love a basket of goodies. The basket includes a Teaching Heart CD Rom. I would love the Primary Teacher Savers from October to December. It has great ideas like: Count by 2's Center (This is a new objective for us so I can use all the help I can get.), Gingerbread activities, The Mitten, and more! Hope I win!

Well, I just about finished setting up my classroom. It's looking pretty good if I do say so! I'm excited about meeting my students next Thursday. Right now I have 16 on the list, but that will change I'm sure!

Ways I Could Use $ for Walmart

$25.00 can go a long way for a teacher getting ready for a new school year! Many of my students do not have all of their supplies needed, so I always purchase extra pencils, crayons, glue, and scissors. I also would love to purchase writing tablets to be used for learning the basic sight words as we practice handwriting each day. We will practice the upper and lower case letter, then write all sight words that begin with that letter. When we are done these notebooks can be taken home so the children can go over a page of words each night.