Airplane Theme

I love the idea of having a theme in my classroom. So glad I am teaching 3rd grade this year. They aren't too old for a theme. Yes!
In my last post I talked about how I love having a travel theme. I figure I can have a rotation of travel themes for several years. Airplanes, trains, road trip, and cruises. Last year my co-teacher and I did the road trip theme. This year I'm going to use airplanes.
For the beginning of the year I'm going to send a Back 2 School letter home to my students and parents welcoming them to my class. Along with the letter I'll send a boarding pass for 3rd grade which they can bring the first day or week of school. I found this template made by Aylee. I love it! I'll post a picture of how it turned out later. I can't wait to personalize it to my class.

Easy/Practically Free Bulletin Board

Last year my co-teacher and I had a Road Trip theme. I love having a travel theme. My favorite part of a travel theme is collecting post cards. My 3rd grade students jumped at the challenge last year. We had so many post cards, over 100. Our largest bulletin board was dedicated to the postcards we collected. In the center I had a map of the United States and I cut out "Road Trip USA" using my cricut paper cutter.
Students asked friends and family to send postcards. A few of my students had grandparents who were retired and did a lot of traveling. We got some great postcards. As we got postcards the students stuck a straight pin in the state where the postcard came from. We made a few goals throughout the year as we gathered postcards. Our last goal was to get at least 1 postcard from each state. We didn't quite get there, but we had fun trying. At the end of the year we counted how many postcards we had from each state.

Let the count down begin

It is crazy to think that July is over half way through. 

School is starting in less than a month! 

Ahh! 

Don't panic! 

You can do this!

Take a deep breath. 

Ok, now let's think about this. What do you need to do to be prepared for the school year?

I don't know about you, but I am totally a list person. I love lists! The joy I get when I can cross something off my list is huge!
So today, as I'm feeling overwhelmed and don't know where to start in my classroom, I am going to make a list of things to accomplish. The list has to be realistic.

25 days till school starts list:

• Year at a glance - 75% complete
• put away stack of papers
• "Skeleton" Back 2 School Packet

Part of being realistic in your lists before school starts is knowing that you won't necessarily be able to finish a task in one day.  For instance, yesterday I was working on the daily schedule for my classroom. I still don't know the exact times on my pull-outs so I was able to get about 75% of it finished. For now that is awesome! Today I most likely won't finish my year at a glance, but 75% of it is a great start. And when I go to finish it later it won't take me too long.
So, my words of wisdom for today are don't stress out. Take it one step at a time. You can't eat an elephant all in one bite (hopefully you won't eat an elephant at all). You have to eat it one bite at a time.

{Now it is time for me to take my own advice.}

Reading

"Shopping for books is akin to shopping for clothes -- if we don't take the time to try them on to see how they fit, they are destined to remain in our closets and on our shelves."
(Debbie Miller Reading with Meaning)