Second Day of school

Time has moved so quickly since I took on the Technology position. I suppose that it didn't help when I helped with a graduation party for a friend on Saturday and a Birthday party for my son on Sunday on top of trying to pull a classroom together and write lesson plans. I have not posted pictures yet because I have not finished the classroom to what I had planned. With glitches and a learning curve to adapt to cosmetics have not been at the top of my list, I will get there though. The cabinets full of supplies and old lesson's have come in handy as a great guide for planning.

So, I think that there is a special place in heaven for Kindergarten teachers. I spend forty five minutes a day with a group of 32. Yesterday, the first day of school, I had two breakdown in tears. Today was better but I had little ones who tried to run in the classroom instead. Kinder requires so much repetition.

For first day activities for my fourth and fifth graders I borrowed from a colleague. Students use a computer program to create a bubble map. The center bubble is the students name. Each outside bubble is a letter of their name, two words describing the student starting with that letter, and a picture to represent one of the words. The bubble maps were printed out and hung on the project wall.
For Second and third graders students used the same program but instead of creating bubble maps students were able to use the workspace as they liked as long as they name was present with two words to represent them from each letter, and of course a picture. First and second graders used a program called kidpix to practice click, drag, and use of a mouse. The kidpix program allows students to create pictures.