I don’t have to tell you what a busy, exciting time of year this is. But it is an especially thrilling time for first-year teachers. My first year gave me some of the most wonderful, terrifying, and humorous memories of my life! This is such an important topic that I’ve decided to run a short series aimed at first-year teachers, with memories and tips from those of us who’ve been there. For the first blog, I’ve asked my good friend, editor Krystle Short Jones, to share some of her thoughts with us:

At the beginning of the school year, I always found myself overwhelmed with too many tasks and thoughts. I would make a daily list of all the things that needed to be accomplished and rank the tasks in order of importance, so I knew what had to be done that day! Each day, I checked off each task as I completed it. I know it sounds funny, but seeing that list with all the checkmarks at the end of the day made me realize just how much I had accomplished. This allowed me to focus on what I had accomplished and not what I had left to accomplish. I had to remind myself that Rome wasn’t built in a day!

As a new teacher, I had the misconception that I was the only teacher who was nervous. Every teacher tosses and turns the night before school starts. We are just as nervous as the kids. That will never change, no matter how many years you teach! That is the fun of it all. Each year you will be both excited and nervous. Personally, I believe that is what makes great teachers!

Don’t be afraid to ask for help or advice. Visit veteran teachers and ask for suggestions. Sometimes more seasoned teachers may seem standoffish, but it isn’t because they don’t want to help you. They understand how much you have going on and don’t want to bother you. So go to them. There is nothing wrong with asking for help. Who knows? Talking with you might be just the inspiration they need too!

Here’s to a great year!
Krystle

Congratulations to Diane Fangmeyer, Director/Teacher of Covenant Kids Preschool, Covenant Presbyterian Church; Omaha, Nebraska! She is the winner of a copy of the Big Book of Monthly Ideas, PreK-K.

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Do you know what I love about back-to-school time? Office products! Notebooks, pens, sticky notes, binder clips, crayons, stickers—I love them all! I want to twirl down the back-to-school aisle at the local superstore and sing a little ode to these marvelous items. (In my mind, I imagine being accompanied by a troupe of dancing writing utensils à la Disney.) Do you love office products as much as I do? Talk to me about how you acquire paper, crayons, stickers, and other items for your classroom. What does your school provide? What do you purchase yourself? What items do your youngsters bring to school? And is the economic crunch affecting your ability to acquire the items you need for your classroom? I can’t wait to hear from you.

Your blog cohost (and office geek),
Kimberly Brugger-Murphy

Congratulations to Diane Fangmeyer, Director/Teacher of Covenant Kids Preschool, Covenant Presbyterian Church; Omaha, Nebraska! She is the winner of a copy of the Big Book of Monthly Ideas, PreK-K.

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It’s hard to believe that an entire month of the summer season has come and gone. Each year I make a mental list of the projects I hope to accomplish during summer. This year’s list includes painting the living room, purging both the attic and my closet, giving my car a thorough cleaning, and tackling the tool shed once and for all. I’m quite certain there were additional items on the list, but that’s an important benefit of a mental list for summer—it’s flexible! So what have I accomplished so far? Let’s see, I’ve read a couple of just-for-fun books, I’ve seen a couple of enjoyable movies (in the theater!), I’ve caught up with friends, I attended a fabulous teacher conference, and I’ve even logged some time in my hammock. It’s been a great summer so far. And who knows? Maybe I’ll go buy paint tomorrow!

So how’s your summer going? Have you been tackling summer projects? Reconnecting with family and friends? Taking some well-deserved time for yourself? I hope I’m not being overly curious, but I’d love to hear what you’ve been up to!

Sunny wishes!

Diane

Congratulations to Diane Fangmeyer, Director/Teacher of Covenant Kids Preschool, Covenant Presbyterian Church; Omaha, Nebraska! She is the winner of a copy of the Big Book of Monthly Ideas, PreK-K.

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Now that you’ve had a chance to read the August/September issue, The Mailbox® magazine editors want to hear what you think! We write the magazine with you and your students in mind, and we want it to be the best it can be—for YOU!

Won’t you take a minute to flip through the issue and let us know what you think? Which ideas and activities have you marked to use with your students? Which ideas will help you as you organize your classroom in the fall? Why? We’d love to hear what’s on your mind.

As you comment, please remember to tell us which grade-level issue you are referring to. The editors are counting on you!

Congratulations to Julie Ulm, Norkenzie Christian Preschool; Eugene, OR. She is the winner of a copy of the Best of Mailbox Authors, Prek-K.

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Summers are getting shorter. At least that’s the impression I got during recent trips to discount stores. While getting ready for a beach trip, I went shopping for swimming supplies. What I found was that the outdoor-living area, which had overflowed into several aisles in May, was reduced to one aisle. In its place was—you guessed it—every kind of back-to-school supply imaginable! This was early in July! I felt like summer was being snatched away from me.

What do you think? Do you get excited about returning to the classroom when you see back-to-school supplies in early July? (I have to admit, there’s nothing better than a brand-new box of crayons no matter what time of year!) Or do you feel like you’re missing out on some of your summer?

Congratulations to Julie Ulm, Norkenzie Christian Preschool; Eugene, OR. She is the winner of a copy of the Best of Mailbox Authors, Prek-K.

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It’s a big world out there, and your two-year-olds are eager to learn about it! Trouble is, teachers have told us that finding books with activities for that age group can be tough.

I’m excited to share a great new book just for these little ones! Totally for Twos from The Mailbox® Books is packed with hundreds of simple and fun learning experiences taken from The Mailbox® magazine Preschool edition. Youngsters will build language skills, explore numbers, sing songs, do some art, explore the senses, and so much more!

Here is a quick summertime song from the book and a few sample pages to try out with your class.

A Summer Song

Help children think of all the fun things they can do in the summer heat. Then personalize this song for each child, inviting her to fill in her favorite summertime activity in the third line.

(sung to the tune of “You Are My Sunshine”)

You know it’s summer! Oh, yes, it’s summer!
It gets so bright and hot outside.
But [Erin] loves it, ’cause (s)he [goes swimming].
Oh, in summer we have so much fun!

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SAMPLE PAGES

Once you try them out, please be sure to stop back by and let me know how they worked with your children. If you’ve already purchased this book and have been using it, I’d love your feedback on that too! I hope you find that it is exactly what you have been asking us for!

Congratulations to Julie Ulm, Norkenzie Christian Preschool; Eugene, OR. She is the winner of a copy of the Best of Mailbox Authors, Prek-K.

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The question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” seemed to pop up frequently when I was younger. Sometimes it was posed by a teacher for a writing assignment, and other times it was asked by a classmate seated nearby at the lunch table. Once or twice, I’m sure it was an inquiry made by a distant relative. What was my number one answer? A teacher. It always seemed like the natural choice to me. And with the help of my family, I even had my own little classroom set up in our basement. It had a large chalkboard to write on, an old-fashioned student desk (my mom bought it at a yard sale when we lived in Illinois), and tons of stuffed animals to teach. I even had some math workbooks my older brother made for me. (Using carbon paper, he duplicated pages and bound them in file folders—as a youngster in the ’70s, I thought them pretty fancy!) It was tons of fun, and even though I considered other careers during my teen years, when it was time for college, education was still my top choice.

What about you? When did you decide that teaching was the profession for you? Has it been a lifelong interest or did you discover it later in life, after dabbling with other careers? I’d love to hear from you!

Congratulations to Audrey in Pasadena, California. She is the winner of a copy of 500 Classroom Tips, Grades K-1 in our weekly blog drawing.

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I’m curious—how many of you are working with students this summer? Many of my summers involve working with students in one way or another. For a few years, I taught a summer program for special education students. The goal of the program was to help kids maintain the skills they had learned during the year so they could pick up where they left off when they returned to school in the fall. The kids and staff worked hard, but we also had lots of fun. The summer atmosphere was relaxing, and it lent itself to activities that we couldn’t do during the regular school year. (Think sprinklers!)

Tutoring has also been part of my summers. One summer I tutored a third-grade boy in reading. (Let’s call him Josh.) That happened to be when I was in a reading master’s program, so I was glad to have the opportunity to put newly learned strategies into practice. Later, I was thrilled to hear that Josh had more self-confidence when he returned to school in the fall and that he had a terrific school year. A little extra help and attention can go a long way!

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Ah, sweet summertime! Now you can finally find a bit of time to relax, spend days with your family, tackle household projects, and pursue favorite hobbies. But I know teachers, and I know that your students are always on your mind. I’m sure you’ll be spending some of your precious summer hours planning and organizing for the coming school year. With this in mind, I’ve taken some time this morning to gather some organizational tips from several of my favorite Mailbox® books, the “500 Classroom Tips” series.

From the Preschool book: Thematic Storage Boxes Decorate your room and store your teaching materials at the same time. Here’s how! Decorate boxes to reflect the thematic materials they will hold. For example, for a farm-related unit, cover a box and its lid with colorful paper. Then glue on farm animal die-cut shapes. Or, for a transportation unit, cover a box with yellow paper. Add black paper wheels, painted windows, and magazine cutout passengers. You’ll be able to tell at a glance where your materials for each theme are located. Plus it’s a great way to spark youngsters’ curiosity for upcoming units!

From the K-1 book: Topics at Your Fingertips Have you collected so many resource books over the years that you don’t even know where to begin looking through them? Here’s a tip to help organize that colossal collection. Arrange your books according to topics—reading, math, centers, art, etc. Using a different color of sticker dots for each topic, attach a dot to the spine of each book. (For example, all reading books might have blue dots on them.) To be sure that the dots stay on the books, cover them with transparent tape. Then arrange the books according to topic (color dot) on a bookshelf or in a file. If desired, make a legend showing each color and topic for your reference. Then, when you need ideas for specific topics, you’ll know exactly where to look!

From the Grades 2-3 book: Favorite Reproducibles

If you’re always scrambling to locate your tried-and-true reproducibles, try organizing them with this great tip. You will need a three-ring binder with dividers. Label one for each month of the school year. Three-hole-punch your favorite reproducibles (student activities, parent letters, party notices) and place them in the binder according to the month in which they will be used. Your reproducibles will be right at your fingertips when you need them.

From the Grades 4-6 book: Database Organizer

“Where did I see that neat activity?” If this sounds familiar, eliminate searching through magazines and books for lost ideas by creating your own computer database. Set up your database using fields titled “Publication,” “Issue/Year,” “Subject,” “Article,” and “Page Number(s).” As you look through a magazine or book, write the information needed on a sticky note attached to its front cover. Later, type the information from the note into the appropriate database fields. Whenever you need an idea on a specific topic, such as ecosystems, go to the Find command in the database and type the name of the topic. The database will list the name of each idea you’ve entered, including the book/magazine featuring it and the page number on which it can be found. How simple, organized, and convenient!

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My birthday is coming up soon! I have to say, having a summer birthday never really bothered me. I had friends who felt a bit cheated about not being able to celebrate their birthdays at school, but I guess I didn’t notice it. I always had a good time having a birthday party with my grandparents or with other relatives we were visiting during the summer. My little sister’s birthday was in the summer too, three weeks before mine, so I guess that helped me love a summer birthday. But, now that I think about it, it might have been fun to have my mother bring cupcakes to school on my special day just once.

In my classroom, I was careful to make a fuss over students with summer birthdays. Some years we celebrated half-birthdays. Other years, I asked students to choose a day that was special to them and we celebrated that day.

To celebrate, we sang to the birthday child and, depending on the grade I was teaching, decorated his chair, made a card in his honor, or wrote a poem for him. After all, the best part of a birthday, no matter what day it’s celebrated, is making the birthday person feel special.

Here’s hoping all of your birthdays are celebrated in style!

Hope

Congratulations to Kathy Dobbs, director of Kathy’s Family Daycare in Simi Valley, CA. She is the winner of a copy of The Big Book of Monthly Ideas (Pre-K) in our weekly blog drawing.

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