So far so good!

I'm pretty pumped about this year. Great group of students so far, great teaching team again, and a lovely new EA to help me out. I don't feel in a haze this first week like I did last year - stepping off a 17-hour flight into desert heat at midnight and teaching at 7:20am the next day was a tad {understatement!} overwhelming and made for a less than thrilling teaching introduction on my part. Now we are practicing routines, {most} things are where they should be - including my brain! - and I have much more accurate expectations. 

Although my class list has gone from 25 to 29 to 27 to 28 already in the first two days of school, I feel like a happy teacher! We have a very high male population at our school, so I have 21 boys so far... I have some super cuties and super smarties so I'm looking forward to working with this group. With a week to set up my classroom, here's how it's shaping up:

My clip chart and Whole Brain Teaching rules {both free!}

Clock numbers - I'm hoping to use these in lessons somehow this month.

My Morning Meeting procedure and "Give Me 5" visual - thanks Mrs. Wheeler for this idea! It's kind of hard to see, but each hand has a little monster picture that focuses on eyes, ears, hands, body and mouth, like this guy:

I got the clip art from My Cute Graphics.

A place to hang fantastic work I receive.

My circus-inspired door complete with "Admit One" tickets that say "Welcome to grade two ___________" I'll use those later to assign classroom jobs.

And my alphabet. {PS - It's only $1 on my TN!} 

There will be a lot more going up as we get into more back to school lessons and activities, and while I don't l.o.v.e. everything about the room so far {my new EA has already declared I am a perfectionist haha}, it is a really great start! I hope everyone is enjoying being back and hopefully getting more than just half of what has been planned done with your classes, which is really all I've managed....
- Amanda