321… Back to School Bash with The Primary Pack!

Hi friends! I am so excited that you are joining me today for our Primary Pack Back to School Bash!! We have been working hard to put together some fun giveaways, freebies, and back to school tips for you!

Our hop is a 3…2…1… BACK TO SCHOOL BASH because each member of The Primary Pack will be giving you 3 teacher tips, 2 giveaways (one on each of our blogs and one BIG one on the Primary Pack), and 1 freebie!

To enter our BIG giveaway, you need to head over to THE PRIMARY PACK first! As you “hop” through each of our blogs, you will collect a letter from each of us… 28 total. Those letters spell out a secret code that you need to enter our BIG giveaway! You will use the secret code to enter the rafflecoptor on The Primary Pack at the end of the hop.
You need to collect the letters from us IN ORDER, so please make sure that you start from the beginning of our hop. Click on the button below to head over to THE PRIMARY PACK and start our BACK TO SCHOOL BASH!!

I hope that you have enjoyed your Back to School Hop so far!! Now it’s my turn to share some of my favorite back to school tips with you:

Ok, so not ALL of your bulletin boards can stay the same the whole year, but some of them can! I plan to take a picture of my kiddos each season this year and create a “picture timeline” of our year together. This board hangs right next to my desk where my kiddos and families can see it. My overall theme is ocean in my room, and I am trying to leave up the same bulletin board titles on some of my boards all year and just swap out the student work! Hopefully this will save me some time and efforts later. 🙂

I have to remind myself of this one ALL the time!! I’ve already finished 3 weeks of the school year and my students still sometimes just need team building activities and time to chat in groups. One of my favorite things that I started this year was “milk and cookie partners.” I got those adorable milk & cookie cut outs at dollar tree & put my students names on all of them. Each time I want my students to have a partner for something, I shuffle them around and each milk gets a new cookie as their partner! We have used these for partner reading, and for the kiddos to practice asking and answering questions with each other. It has been so great for the climate in my classroom! I need to remember to use it more often 🙂

Ok, so this might sound silly and like duh!! But I feel like as teachers sometimes we forget to take care of ourselves!! I feel like when I am in a happy mood, that carries over into my teaching and I have a great day with my kids. I am learning to let the little things go, and just try to enjoy each day! I try to do little things for myself so that I can stay positive… If that means treating yourself to a Starbucks every so often, saying a little morning prayer or reflection every day as you walk into your classroom, or just having a glass of wine at the end of the day to unwind… you should DO IT!!

That’s right.. our first giveaway is happening over at The Primary Pack!! You need to continue hopping through the rest of the blog posts and gathering the letters at the end of our posts. You will enter those letters on The Primary Pack for a chance to win a silhouette cameo!!

But there’s more!! I’m giving away something too:

Enter the rafflecoptor at the end of my post to win $25 to my TPT store!! Yahoo!!

I know that the beginning of the year is all about the alphabet in kindergarten and in 1st grade too! I have put together a small sampler from some of my ABC packs that I have found very useful the first 3 weeks of my school year! Click on the picture below to download your FREEBIE!

The fun isn’t over my friends!! Make sure that you hop along to the next Primary Pack blogger: Brittany from Precious Steps Preschool! Click below to head to her blog: