End of summer and First Week of Kindergarten!

Greetings friends!

Lindsay here . . .

Wowzers. Where did August go? Yes, I know its super pitiful that it is already September 5th and I am still lamenting the end of my summer vacation . . .

Here is how we wrapped up our summer "Messner-style":

Jack's first trip to the zoo - It was a brazillian degrees outside with 100% humidity. Seriously. 100%. Just look at Jack's red sweaty cheeks!

Jack's first carousel ride. Not sure we got our money's worth on this one, seeing as how Jack didn't even crack a smile . . .

 

Jack's first football game (cheering on cousin Jeff on Varsity - woohoo!!).

 

 

And finally . . . Jack's first birthday! Woohoo! It was such a fun day with family and friends at the park celebrating our little man. (Thank you Kerri for taking such great pictures of the day!)

He was not at ALL impressed with the "Happy Birthday" song apparently. (Please note: This is "stink face". FYI.)

However, one double-decker smash cake later, he was all smiles! Go Baby Jack!

As sad as it was for the summer to come to an end, I was ready to meet my 19 little kinder kidlets this past Tuesday . . . However, by Friday those 19 kiddos turned into 25 kiddos!   Needless to say I was running around make one more copy of this, two more copies of that, etc., etc. this WHOLE week.  :)

We stayed busy and had a blast this week in Room 17.  We made Chicka Boom trees, we learned all about our Kindergarten classroom rules, we had practice centers  (I can't even count how many times I said "You're not done 'til the ding-dong dings!!".  Probably a million.), and we had fun "showing what smart kids we are". :)

One of the activities I had my kiddos work on was the First Day of Kindergarten packet (although we really do it over the course of a week) that I do every year.  This packet has the students to a self portrait, a dot-to-dot, some drawing, and writing their name, ABCs and numbers.  When my kiddos are done I save their packets and tuck them away, and then have them do it again at the end of the year.  When I pull out the packet from the beginning of the year it makes a great side-by-side comparison for the parents to see all of their child's growth.  This packet is a great informal assessment tool also to see where your kiddos are with fine motor, letters, numbers, name-writing, etc.  in the first week!  

If you'd like to download this freebie for your kidlets, click the image below:

 

 

Here is one of the self portraits that one of my students did from the First Week of Kindergarten packet: I love, love, LOVE their little drawings!!

I have much more to come soon: pictures of the room, activities, freebies, but for now I am off to bed!  This kindergarten teacher is one TIRED lady!!  But before I go, one more freebie. . . .

During the TPT sale in August I snagged Deedee Wills' math journal prompts for the year, I am so excited to get my kids using their math journals!!  I made special covers to go on their lil composition books that we will be using, and I thought I would share. :)   Happy journaling! (Click the image below to download.)

That's all for now folks.  Hope you all have a wonderful weekend full of sleep and football (yay for football season starting!!) :)

Lindsay