So, I shopped til I dropped this weekend at TpT. I cleared about 20 items off my wishlist, and I got everything at a great price. I CANNOT WAIT TO GET BACK TO SCHOOL! Of course, my family will have to go without some essentials (groceries, maybe?) since I found so many great things. =) Here's a peek at some of the awesomeness I consumed. I got ...

No matter how many years I have been doing this teaching kindergarten thing, I STILL get nervous planning and making sure I have everything all set and ready to go for the first day of school  I thought I'd share some tips to help make your planning easier and make your first day back to school as smooth as it possibly can be: Remember that this ...

Well, I'm all done with my first day of student teaching.  Today I just had to watch, observe, and interact with students.  Only one thing to say: THEY ARE CRAZY.Students don't know how to respect teachers and it's sad to watch a teacher with 20+ years of experience not be able to get respect from his classes.  A sign of how the day ...

Well, I survived and made it through the first day.  My classroom is put together, I made it through Open House and 2 days of teacher meetings.  Here's what I learned about my students:  I've learned they like to talk, except of course, when I ask them to talk.  I learned they like to repeat my name over and over and over. I learned they love ...

Today was our very first day in preschool and we started off the year by exploring the things we 'can' do in preschool...

Follow @CoughlinLaura My grandmother, who was born in 1924 and will turn 87 in 2 days, read my last post and sent me a fantastic response! That’s right, my 86-year-old grandma who reads blogs and uses email to contact me began her response with the extremely ironic sentence: “Times haven’t changed that much.” She was commenting on the ...

Follow @CoughlinLaura I’m not talking about mine – although I know I’ll have them – I’m talking about the students’. I teach in a 7th and 8th grade building, which means that 50% of the students are navigating the building for the first time on the first day of school, in addition to meeting a huge number of new people – adults and peers. You ...

Follow @CoughlinLaura Wouldn’t we all like to walk into our classrooms on the first day of school and know that each angelic face staring back at us is a genius, just waiting to exercise his or her mental muscles and create amazing, thoughtful work? I have good news: Each of those kids is a genius, or should I say, has a genius. True ...

At the end of this week, my summer break if half over. Hard to believe, I know, but I am starting to get myself back into school mode and make some plans. One of the first things, actually THE first thing I like to have for my new students is some sort of “get to know me” activity. I don’t choose to make this a time to discuss classroom ...

When I got up on Wednesday morning I was a bit nervous to what I was walking into. As we approached the school I was pleasantly surprised with how nice the school looked. It looked new and looked like it was in great condition, better than the schools I attended as a younger student. As [...]