Special guests at Open House in my classroom

My Mom has not ever been inside Gordon Parks Academy and since this is my third year teaching there, she was determined to attend Open House.  I am SO glad my parents came--it was fun to show off!  I knew that my parents were planning to attend, so I wasn't TOO surprised when they arrived.  However, Patrick SURPRISED when he popped in, too!  (He didn't want to have his picture taken.)

My dad is letting me borrow my grandmother's dala horse to display in my classroom this year for my Swedish theme. The front of the dala horse says "Valkommen" which is Swedish for "welcome."  The back of the horse says "Good bye, come again" in Swedish.

I was TICKLED to have such a great turn out this year at my Open House/Meet Your Teacher/Drop off your school supplies night.  I had 18 students enrolled the day of Open House and 10 of the families came and met me!  I now have a total of 20 students enrolled.  I think it will be a GREAT year!  We have been very busy practicing procedures this week (Wed.-Friday) so that the rest of our school year will run more smoothly.

As promised, I will try to get pictures taken and posted of the whole classroom this coming week.  It has been very crazy around my school---we added new classrooms and I'm also a mentor and bus supervisor (we have 28 buses) this year.  :)

My 5th grader is now a teacher?!

This afternoon at the end of a district training, this beautiful young lady approached me.  She said, "You are Ms. ?" and I said, "Mrs. Konecny."  She replied with, "I'm T.V. (to protect her privacy, not naming her)."  Wow.  She was one of my 5th grade students at Stanley Elementary about 10 years ago...which is why she didn't know my married name.   She will be student-teaching in 2nd grade during the Spring Semester this year.  It was very fun to see her "all grown up" and know that she wanted to come over and say "hi" to me.  I gave her a little bit of advice, NETWORK and share things with others and then handed her my business card saying if she needed any thing, just ask I might have some resources.

Still not sure if I think that whole thing is "cool," or if it makes me feel OLD.  LOL

Can you believe it?

Today is my last day of "freedom" for the summer!  Where has all the time gone?  My last blog post was "School's Out for Summer."  I can see that I was not very faithful about posting. 

Well, hang on for a couple of days and I will be posting pictures of my classroom.  This year I am decorating with Sweden and bright colors/polka dots.  I teach in an I.B. school  and my teammate and I decided we would use a country for decoration and spring board to learning.  He is using the United Kingdom and I chose Sweden since that is the country that my father's family came from.  Today, I am ironing Swedish flags to use as curtains and hope to borrow my dad's dala horse to hang outside my classroom door. (I'll have to sweet-talk my dad into helping me install it, too.)

Speaking of "sweet-talking".....I am SO blessed that my family helps me with all of my classroom stuff!  Last night, Patrick was pounding grommets into my Swedish flags so that I can use them as curtains.  For 16 years my parents, husband, "other mother," bestie--Lisa, and others have been so kind and generous to help me make/build things, help with decor, and supplies for my classroom.  I couldn't have done it without you!  Oh, and don't worry, I'll keep asking for help, too!  :)