BTS Bloghop

Where did the summer go?



I'm joining in a Back to School Blog Hop!  It 's hard to believe it's already time to head back to school.  But wait, I didn't get to do everything on my to-do list yet!!  To top it off- I have jury duty scheduled this week- I know- the worst time.  But, I definitely would rather do it now  than later! Teachers understand what it means to do jury duty during the school year- SUB PLANS!!


We officially have to return to work on Thursday August 13th and school begins on the 19th.  I tried getting my keys all last week (before the week of JURY DUTY) but wasn't able to get into my room (I may have had a slight panic attack).  I finally got in on Friday afternoon & then I also went in for a half day on Saturday.  There's always so much to do at the start of a school year.  I did lots of prep at the end of the year and cleaned and organized all my cabinets (I mean ALL of them- emptied them, cleaned them, then reorganized).

I always start the year saying, "This will be the year my room stays organized!".  Always!  Does it- NO!  I can't understand it because my house stays pretty organized.


Well, I'm going to try again to stay organized.  When I was at the first grade conference this summer Rachelle Smith showed lots of organizing tips.  Some I've done in the past, but a new one I'm implementing is trying to keep my teacher books organized.  You know the books, the ones you keep up on a shelf and only get down to read to the kids (they can read all the other hundreds of books I own whenever they'd like!).  I ordered 3 packages (5 per pack) from Amazon and need to order a few more (well maybe like 10 more- haha).  So I put together 15 magazine holders and started putting books into them.  This was the point when I realized I need a lot more!  I'm excited about this because I'll be able to pull one of these off the shelf and it'll have all my books in that theme inside it.  I do have a lot of books for some themes- like Christmas- so I may need to get rid of some, or use two boxes.  I'm feeling good about this!

When I reorganized at the end of the year I bought new tubs and put all my centers into them.  I have a lot of stuff!  I even got rid of a lot of units & I still have a ton.   I'll post a prettier picture of those later.  I haven't made the labels for the front yet.  I actually forgot I was supposed to do that until I went to my room Friday.  Oops.


Well, I hope you're being successful in getting ready for a new year.  You can enter to win some cool products below on the rafflecopter.  I'm giving away a bundle of my new Write the Room Word Families.  Totally fun activities.  You get one for each of the five vowels and they  have recording sheets that will help you differentiate. You can see it here:



You can continue to hop  by clicking here:



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5 Comments

  1. My favorite back to school tip is to sit in your closed classroom with the door locked for 15-20 minutes before you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by deocorating, furniture arrangement, visiting friends, or heading off to professional developments or staff meetings, and just visualize what you want to see happening in your classroom. Let the edges of that vision get a bit fuzzy so you recognize that it's alright for flexibility and things out of your control. Then, face the new year with joy of making each day what you need it to be.

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    1. Wow! This is good Betsy- I tend to rush into tasks trying to quickly get them done! I'm going to try this. Thanks!

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  2. My back to school tip is to put your small group supplies in separate boxes so that you can easily change groups and you always know where everything is.

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  3. As a new teacher I have received so many BTS tips. The one I'm taking to heart the most is organizing my center materials for easy access throughout the year!

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