Back to Kindergarten

Hello friends! I hope everyone had a nice, relaxing summer. I know I did! I turned the big 3-0 (eek!). To celebrate, my friends and I went to a super fun brunch in Costa Mesa at Plums Café. I highly recommend the coconut French toast, and some bellinis, of course!

I spent three weeks back east with my family, where I babysat for my little nephew in DC and got to spend two weeks at my ultimate happy place, the Outer Banks!

My husband finally got to meet his little nephew!

This summer was all the sweeter because I went into my vacation knowing that I had an amazing new opportunity coming my way in the fall! After a year in a quasi-limbo state of teaching (part-time homeschool extension program, part-time Kindergarten), I finally secured a full-time teaching job at a fantastic progressive school after interviewing for a position this past spring.

I am continuing on in Kindergarten (something I never thought I would be doing). So far, I have loved getting to know my new "K-Squad" of teachers, along with the other teachers and admin at the school.

My new classroom is kind of a funny shape  (almost hexagonal), so it was definitely a challenge setting it up. I also had a lot of things that needed to be purged/given away from the classroom's previous teacher. And of course, I had to find places to put all of my fantastic #dollarspot finds :) I think I did a pretty good job!

How much do you love the stained glass window on the door?

I bought some cute banners, like the felt "Welcome" one that I hung over the door, along with some polka dot felt letters that I used to decorate the pencil and notebook paper banners with "Hola" and "Write". My school is bilingual, so I get to use my Spanish regularly! I collected some plastic containers to use as book bins. I downloaded these Spanish book bin labels to help organize books by topic.

Speaking of books, I absolutely LOVE my reading corner. I had recently bought new bedding for our bedroom at home, so I took the throw pillows from our old bedding set and brought them into my classroom to make reading time extra cozy!

I also repurposed this pedestal sink storage unit as a cart (of sorts) to hold all of our pencils, markers, and crayons. I tried to put similar color families in each container for the markers and colored pencils...we'll see how long that lasts :-P

I'm looking forward to sharing more about some of the fun things I have planned for the first month of school with all of you! Stay tuned!