School Prep. in Germany and Becker

      It's that time of year again - malls are full of moms doing back to school shopping with their kids - Wal-Mart is running out of the specific kind of the scissors listed on all the school supply lists - teachers are working away in their classrooms for hours and hours before their contracted time begins - and First Grade teachers in Germany are crafting their own "Back to School" gift for each child!
     See the tree in the first photo.  It is full of the gifts that First Grade students get on their first day of school in Germany.  Pretty fun!  Pretty cute!  They are all over Germany this time of year because they represent the start of a new year.  I wish America had something fun like that to give our First Graders.  I teach Second Grade and I try to come up with something for the students who come to Open House each year (sometimes a marker, or a smiley face gumball, or an eraser of the earth).  But, even though we don't have anything traditional to give our students, we as teachers, give an awful lot of ourselves to our classrooms and students to make it a great year.  I have been rather into blogging lists lately.  So, here is a typical list of things teachers do each fall:

Organize, sort and label books in our classroom libraries

Dust shelves, carts, trinkets, computers, and globes

Write student names on millions of things such as:

locker tags, desk tags, workbooks, individual book boxes, lunch tag holders, hallway cutesy signs, behavior charts, guided reading bins, and student folders!  Uff-dah!

Laminate half the above-mentioned stuff

Cut out everything you have just laminated

Arrange classroom "furniture" to get optimum use out of the space

Create forms for parents to fill out at Open House

Create a birthday bulletin board after receiving birthdates for students

Make fun, interesting, useful bulletin boards

Organize all the piles of papers coming in from the Offset copier

Put up a calendar with all the important September events marked

Write meaningful lesson plans that keep the attention of 26 kids at the same time who all are used to freely running around the neighborhood or swimming at the pool all day!

Catch up with the teachers and staff you see so that everyone feels welcome and ready 

to be a team player with a new school year beginning.

Try to calm your own nerves, even though this is the 12th time you've done this!

Look forward to seeing the students that will be your "kids" for the next nine months!