Back to school updates!

Can't believe school has already started! We had 2 days of in-services last week and kiddos on Wednesday. By the end of school on Friday I was EXHAUSTED! It is always hard to get back into the swing of things. However, I think this is going to be a great year and I am excited to get to know all my kids. I have about 160 students and I am teaching 7 sections of social studies. I have never taught this many sections before of one subject so I hope I can keep my enthusiasm going all day. Below are some pictures of my classroom this year. I had Pinterest to thank for a couple of my ideas!

This is my "Histagram" board that I saw on Pinterest! I will put items on this that discuss the topics we are covering in class. 

I have never been good with absent work so this year I am going to try to be better about keeping up with it! I got this organizer at Target and I am going to put the work for the day in the folder with the student's name written on the paper. I hope this helps!  

 This is my desk area. I thought the fabric makes it look more fun and personalized. The fabric to the left is covering a couple of shelves. This helps hide clutter and makes it look neat. 

 This is one side of my wall that they painted this summer! It used to be white like the rest. I think the color looks nice and makes the room feel more homey. This was a picture taken before I glued the rulers on my wall (they are the picture below).

This shows the yard stick I got from Home Depot. I then hot glued decorated clothespins on the ruler so I can display more student work. The kids always love seeing their work displayed so now I have more room! It will also cut down on all the time I spend re-taping items in the morning after they have fallen down during the night! 

I am pretty happy with how my room looks this year! I have a couple of areas I forgot to take pictures of that I will put on here eventually. So far it seems my kids are enjoying my classroom decor also! 

New Year, New School, New Grade

Well I obviously did an AWFUL job of keeping up with this blog last year! I can't believe my last post was January 2013! Here is a SUPER quick update. I took a new position in August of 2013 back in my hometown! I am now teaching 6th grade social studies and our curriculum is all about ancient civilizations. This was quite a change from geography and Kansas history so last year I had to really brush up on my knowledge of the ancient world! I was also completing my last year of my master's which I finally finished. I graduated in May 2014 with a degree in Curriculum and Instruction from my Alma mater, Emporia State University. I am VERY happy that is done with so I can fully focus on my kiddos at school.

Graduation Day!

I cannot believe that I only have a little over 2 weeks until we have to report back to the building. I have been working slowly on getting things ready, but now I am ready to get back in gear. I know I have said it before, but this year I am REALLY going to try to keep this updated more often! I won't be quite as busy now that my master's classes are finished. I will be coaching volleyball and track and I will be the assistant STUCO sponsor, which I am very excited about. I know I can handle all of that though!

Well here is the first, hopefully of many, blog posts I will write this year!