Summer Camp!

Wow we have not blogged in FOREVER... Sorry about that... Anyways, I'm posting now so better late than never I guess.

This summer I am getting my first real taste of being a full time lead teacher in a classroom. I get to be a second grade teacher for the summer camp at the school I have worked at for a little over 4 years. I have worked during this summer camp many times before, but usually as an aide or something like that, never as a lead teacher in a classroom.

Obviously, after going to school for 4 years to teach, I'm pretty excited to get into a classroom. Summer camp at this school is a lot more relaxed than the actual school year, so I feel like it is a nice way for me to ease into teaching.

It is the third day, and I am loving it! I get to plan and do lots of fun hands on arts and crafts, science experiments, and other fun things that can sometimes get pushed aside during the actual school year. Plus I am with second graders, which is a little bit younger than I am used to, so me and the kids get to do some things that are more cute, fun, and creative than I normally get to do!

One thing that I was really worried about for this summer was setting up my classroom. I know it sounds silly, and Josh told me again and again, "The kids won't come in and cry if you don't have your bulletin board decorated. It won't be the end of the world." But I had to explain to him, as I shall explain to you, decorating the classroom is almost all for parents and other teachers. I mean yes, I want it to be fun for the kids, but at this age the kids will LOVE just about anything. Teachers and parents on the other hand are much harder to please. And the teachers at this school are awesome! They always do super fun and creative things in their rooms, even to the point that they get out actual sewing machines and making things... can you say over my head?

Anyway, needless to say, I was stressed about the whole thing. So I spent three days last week before summer camp getting my room all ready. I decided on a camping theme, I looked at every walmart, dollar store and teacher store around for inspiration (By the way, decorating a whole room is NOT cheap, as I soon saw, hence me trying to stick to the dollar store P.S.Thanks Kelly for that box of stuff, the bulletin board stuff came in handy!) and tried to find ideas online from other teachers (yeah for free teacher-to-teacher forum websites!). I came up with a room that I thought looked good enough not to be the lamest classroom at camp and decided that I was happy with the room.

Well, today I found out that I won the contest at camp for the most creative classroom design! I had completely forgotten about the contest, likely because I did not think I had a chance in the world with all of those other great rooms! I'm super excited! And, after the gift cards I won for the prize, it doesn't look like I lost a lot of money decorating the classroom after all!

Anyway, I know it seems like a silly victory, but it is a nice way to start of my teaching experience, so I just wanted to share it with everyone. I'm sure you are just dying see pictures of my classroom now, (lol not really but I'll show you anyways) so take a look: