Peek at the Week
This shirt is from LipStick and Littles and I LOVE IT! So cute. Check it out on her website! https://lipsticklittles.com/
Hi friends! Welcome to my first post ever of my new blog series! I've decided to do a post each week updating all of you about our week in Kindergarten, my workouts/nutrition and whatever else comes in mind! I put this out on my Instagram and a lot of people had great name suggestions- but I decided to go with "Peek at the Week". I hope this series will be helpful for you and a great way for me to remember all the great memories of each week. Without further adu...
LET'S GET STARTED!
SCHOOL
First of all, I can't even believe i'm writing this right now. I can't believe the first week of Kindergarten is already over. It was quite the whirlwind (as to be expected). This is my 5th year of teaching and I've previously taught 1st grade for 3 years and 2nd grade for 1 year. I was nervous about making the switch to Kindergarten because of all the patience I knew it would require, but I feel confident in my abilities to make this a great year for my kids! My heart LOVES the littles, so primary is definitely the place for me!
So, how did the first week go? I'm going to be completely honest on this blog- that's the point. However, I will never share names or photos of kids unless I have permission to from their parents. So if parts of it seem vague, that's for privacy reasons. Anyways- the first day of Kindergarten was ROUGH. I came home and honestly felt the worst I have felt on any "first day of school". I knew they would need tons of explicit directions and all of that fun stuff- but I didn't realize just how much. Most of them had no idea how to even function at school (which is to be expected but it's a lot harder than I thought). This left me feeling extremely exhausted and honestly just, terrified of this year lol. However I will say, each day of the week got better and better. We continued practicing line up, carpet, hallway, and recess procedures and they ended up doing a really great job for only the first week of school. Deep breaths!
The days are loooooong because we don't have any specialist in the afternoon on Monday and Tuesdays. So from 11:40-3:30 we are in the classroom and they are TIRED. Wed + Thurs we have two specials (one in the AM and one in the PM) which helps break our time up a bit. It's just hard because they are still so little and being at school all day is asking a lot. I only had one kiddo fall asleep on Friday but he was soooo grumpy and crying when he woke up ( I feel ya, kid!). He just kept saying how he wanted to sleep (I let him but then it was time to go home). Poor guy. I also do have significant behaviors this year which is really stressful but I'm going to do my best to keep our classroom environment as positive as possible and try to find something that works. On Friday, one of my students drew on my carpet with sharpie...yes, sharpie. This wasn't fun and certainly not was I was hoping for but it is what it is and this is how teaching goes. People don't talk about this stuff enough. I do know that children who need the most love ask for it in the most unloving ways and I'm keeping that thought close to heart.
This is from Elizabeth's (TheKinderHeartedClassroom's name practice product!)
I didn't realize ahead of time that almost none of my kids would be able to write their name, hold a pencil or crayon, and etc. This was an eye opener to me. I knew we would need to practice, but I was shocked that almost all of them needed help with holding a pencil! But, now that I know- we have been working hard! I had previously printed all of the name practicing resources from TheKinderHearted Classroom's TPT store (I'll link it below) and those have been a great help! I also ordered Ticonderoga Golf Pencils on Amazon after day 1 as well as downloaded a ton of management songs! We have a song on how to sit, how to line up, how to put the glue lid on, it goes on and on lol. Like I said, this is not my first experience ever teaching (this is my 5th year) and I've spent majority of my time in 1st grade... but it is a HUGE difference. With all that being said, my kids are so so so sweet. The want to do the right thing and are so innocent. They get SO excited over the smallest things which is so fun.
Here is the link for the amazing name product (it comes with tons of different options!) https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Name-Activities-Editable-Name-Games-Back-to-School-Activities-3316362
Some of the fun things we did this week:
1). Read the First Day Jitters and drank Jitter Juice (I didn't get any pictures of this sorry!)
2). Read How to be a bucket filler and made our own Bucket crafts (they got to decorate their own buckets!). They LOVED this story and kept saying "Mrs. Powell- she filled my bucket! or ____ dipped in my bucket!"
3). Read Chrysanthemum and made these adorable crafts!
4. Read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and made these trees with the letters in our name! The letters are stickers and this was really really hard for them. I had my TA previously find each letters in their name and put them in a baggy but it was still hard because we put a few other letters just to make it more challenging and we should have only stuck with their names, they couldn't recognize the letters from their name tag because the stickers were all uppercase. Next year I'll do this differently!
5. Earned lots of DOJO points and had our first DOJO store on Friday where they got to trade in their points for prizes!
6. We also read the Kissing Hand and used our hand prints in Ink on a cute poem to send home and made our very own Chester's!
WOW! It was a busy week and we all needed this labor day weekend so badly! I survived the first week of kindergarten, only two kids cried, everyone got home okay- I'll take that as a BIG win! :)
We are starting reading and math curriculum this week so I'm excited to dive into that and see where my kids are at!
Workouts/Nutrition
I am SO happy to say that I still woke up at 4:30 AM every single morning before school and worked out M-F! I didn't let the excuse of it being "the first week of school" get in the way and still got my workouts in. This is HUGE because in the past I would usually just take the first week off because it's so stressful. I found that it really doesn't make a big difference if I just keep with my normal routine which is working out in the AM now, I still get everything I need to get done, done! I have been going to bed around 9-10pm and waking up at 4:30, driving 40ish minutes to the gym and meeting my friend Tracie there. It is SO SO SO nice to have someone to workout with that early. There is no way I can just sleep in because I'd feel bad if I didn't go...so that helps me stay committed too!
Our schedule was Monday- Shoulder, Tuesday- Legs, Wednesday-Chest/Triceps, Thursday- Back/Biceps and Friday- Cardio/Abs. The only thing is I need to find time to get in a little more cardio but that isn't a big deal. I'll figure it out!
My nutrition was on point as well all week. Honestly I think its 10x easier to hit my macros when I'm busy. I had meal prepped everything so it was just simple. I'm much more likely to go off track on weekends or when I'm not as structured (aka summer) lol.
I haven't gotten sick at ALL since school started which is amazing (so far) and I'm giving all that credit to taking my greens DAILY! I freaking love it and all the benefits it has, especially for bloating. Let me know if you have more questions on it (that's for another post) and I'll let you guys know when it comes back in stock!
Overall it was an amazing week in Kindergarten and I'm so proud of myself for staying on point with my workouts all week! Now that I'm in the habit of working out in the morning...I couldn't imagine it any other way!
With love,
Brooklyn