First Day Back!!! Love Looping!!!

Love, love, love looping up with my munchkins!!! Did I say how much I loved looping up! Woohoo!!! What a great first day back!!!! Hope I didn't just jinx myself!!! heehee

For those who have followed since last year...my munchkins and myself moved up to 1st Grade! We're in the same classroom and have a few furniture items that are different. Our administration bought us some new items. It's always fun to get new things especially if I didn't have to fork out money! I told myself I was NOT going to spend so much money in my classroom anymore!!! Let's see if I can hold true to that!

Ok, back to looping... What a wonderful thing it is to loop with the same munchkins! LOVE it!!! Like everything else there are a few drawbacks to looping...you take your problem munchkins with you...well, not everyone does but I do. I can't "trade" them off! Even with their problems their still my babies! The great thing is...they know how to do things!!! I don't have to teach them how to hold a crayon or how to stand in line or how to raise their hand! Yay!!! Woohoo!! It's like we picked up where we left off! They know me and I know them! They know what I expect and did I say they can do things!!! I dare anyone to teach Kinder! haha Kindergarten is still my favorite grade to teach and I think it's the hardest one ever!!! If you can teach Kinder well, you can teach ANY grade well! It's not just playing in Kinder anymore. The sad thing about Kinder teachers is that ~WE NEED A STIPEND!!! Coaches get extra pay, bilingual gets extra pay but Kinder...nada!!! Enough on my Kinder soap box!

This year was the first looping year that not all of my munchkins returned. My top notch ones went to other districts or moved! ~BOO!! I am very excited to have the ones who did return back in the classroom. Little blue shoes is back and so is my "favorite." ~shhhhh...I know I'm not supposed to have favorites but I couldn't help it last year! He did sooooo well and made such great strides! I did decide that this year he won't be my favorite because he's really blended in well with everyone and doesn't need that extra TLC. I do have 8 new munchkins that came from other schools. Three of them came from the same private school! What a coinkidink! ~hmmm....did they all move into the valley? I'll start to be nosy soon...heehee The new parents that I've met are GREAT! Super super supportive already! They're actually more so than my original parents!

Out of the 8 new munchkins I can tell two or three of them will be my works in progress for the year. One surprised me when I saw his drawing...Yikes!!! Holy Moly Guacamole!! It was a martian drawing!!! ~Ahhhh!!! Big circle head, one circle eye, sticks as arms and it was all blue!! I asked him to add "more details" to his art work and he added more blue! Haha! Guess he likes the color blue! He'll be the next Picasso or Monet when I'm done with him! haha

They're all really cute munchkins and they've grown sooooo much over the summer! A fellow teacher made a cute comment that since I'm tall my munchkins have "grown" to my expectations and they're tall too! haha I guess they're like certain fish...put them in a small tank they stay small. Put them in a large tank and they grooooooooow. I guess I'm the tank! haha Wait...did I just insult myself?! haha

My problem munchkins were back and I decided to put them back into the population this year and I didn't separate them into isolation! Yes, I ran a Kinder prison last year...heehee Just Kidding! I wiped their slates clean and put them on parole and put them together with the others. I'm praying I don't have to revoke their parole and put them back in isolation! heehee My Little Blue Shoe boy from last year, who could not for all the Oreo's in the world, control his talking and ADHD had a super fantastic quiet day!! Yay!!! ~Nope he's not on medication for his ADHD. He did really great! Probably because one of the newbies looks like he may be taking over that "problem" role. Maybe, maybe not? We'll see. Again, I hope I'm not jinxing myself with my pure joy from today! It was the first day of class and most of them may still have been asleep or scared! haha ~Knock on wood!
~Psst...can you keep a secret???.....We really, really, really, had a good day! Loved it! I missed my babies too!

We'll see what kind of week/year we have in store for us on our new journey in Munchkinville! Stay tuned for more adventures...

XOXO's