...And So It Begins!

I am so lucky to have spent the past nine months student teaching in a second grade classroom in Tempe, Arizona. My last day in that classroom was last Friday, but the good news is...I HAVE A JOB!!! Just a few days prior, I received not one but four job offers and ultimately got to choose to work at my dream school next year teaching second grade!

That being said, I have a lot of work to do this summer :) Setting up a classroom is something I have looked forward to my whole life, but it is already proving to be more work than I expected (but so much fun!). There are so many little things you have to think about. Here are a couple things I have picked up so far.

I bought this rug and these ottomans from Ross a few weeks ago and I am planning to put them in my classroom library:

This picture is from Tunstall's Teaching Tidbits but I went to Garden Ridge and bought that cute rug the second I saw it on her blog! I can't wait to use it as my main gathering area:

When I bought this chair from a thrift store, it was forest green. Since then I have painted it and plan to use it as an author's chair/share chair/celebration seat/etc. It's not completely done, and it's certainly not perfect, but I am really happy with how it turned out:

(Ignore that hose in the background!)

I got these drawers from Michael's for Christmas...only a teacher would ask for rolling drawers for Christmas! I plan to use the small drawers for Word Work/Literacy Stations and Math Games and the bigger drawers for flash cards and other large manipulatives:

Last but not least, on my last day of student teaching my mentor teacher and second graders spoiled me with these rolling drawers full of school supplies:

They are full of pens, pencils, crayons, markers, Sharpies, paper, 

white board markers, etc! Everything a new teacher could possibly want!

I haven't even begun to make a dent in all that goes into putting a classroom together, but it has been so fun to get started :) Now I just need to think about bulletin boards, student storage, organizing data, curriculum mapping, new textbooks...the list is too long! 

Any words of advice for this new teacher??

Good Thing You Were There

Choosing a blog name feels so permanent! I've put off starting a blog for a while simply because I couldn't pick a name...I wanted it to be meaningful, memorable, not-too-short-and-not-too-long, with a nice ring to it :) Like they always do, my students came through!

On my last day of student teaching, my mentor teacher put together this book with letters from all of my students: 

The kids wrote the sweetest letters and my mentor glued each student's picture next to their note. One of the boys in my class wrote this note:

"Thank you so much. After all, you've done so much things for us

like teaching us so much...and remember that one time I couldn't get through

it but you helped? Good thing you were there!"

The funny thing is, I know the exact moment he was talking about and at the time he didn't seem as grateful as I pushed him to finish his work! Ends up even eight-year-olds can be reflective and be thankful that someone helped them along the way :) 

In several of my interviews, I was asked to describe a moment that characterized my teaching or that characterized a teacher's success. Of course I always aim for high student achievement and growth both personally and academically, but the most important thing to me is building a community that supports each other and challenges each other. At the end of every year I want my students and I to be able to say to each other, "Good thing you were here! I couldn't have gotten through this year without you!". This student helped me remember all of the great moments this year when I got to see that community in action, and served as the inspiration for my brand new teaching blog title :) Let's all cross our fingers that I have many more of these moments to share as I being my first year of teaching next year!