Back to School Busy-ness

We are officially one week into this new school year and I am exhausted!
These past two weeks have been so busy with meetings, prep work, parent nights, and of course, teaching.
I have been working full-time hours even though I am a part-time teacher, and my to-do list still feels endless.

But I am so excited for this year. My class is already a lot of fun.

We started off the year with some of my favorite books:

and I'm planning to try out some new favorites during the next few weeks:

To help the kids explore the school a little bit during the first week, my Kindergarten team does a fun treasure hunt activity using this book:

(My team mate has been using this idea for a few years...
I'm sure it came from somewhere, but I'm not sure where.)

After reading the book, we tell the kids that we brought some cookies for them to celebrate their first week of Kindergarten, but when we go to pull them out, we find a note from The Mouse in its place explaining that he stole our cookies. So we follow the clues to different places around the school until we find them in the Principal's office. The Principal is so great to meet all the kids and play along with our little game. 

The kids love this because its a treasure hunt and they get cookies at the end.

 I love it because it is a great way to introduce how we walk in the hall...(we need to walk quietly so we don't scare the mouse away!) Plus, it doesn't hurt to earn some brownie points from the kiddos because I brought them cookies. :) 

Other than that we have been learning and practicing our rules and routines again and again and again. 

I keep reminding myself that all of the repetition is going to pay off eventually!