Preparing for School

The last few weeks of summer can be insane.  I wanted to help get you going with a few ideas that you can take back and apply before the kiddos even arrive!

So this week I had set a goal for myself to accomplish some things and want to share my progress with you!

*Task #1: decide pics for first day of school

I love taking pictures of the kiddos on the first day of school.  It is so fun to post pictures with their work, use them in parent gifts and look back at them at the end of the year.  This past year for my baby's first birthday, we threw a Cinco de Mayo bash and I made mustache props for his party.

I have been so excited to use them with my students ever since.  I will take their picture with one of the 'staches and we can have some silly mustache-fun!  I just drew the mustaches for the props at his party, but you can click here for a FREE download of a template!

These were so simple to make.  I used kitchen skewers, glued a pompom on the pointy end, cut out a mustache from black foam paper and then glued on the 'stache!

*Task #2: figure out what to do with my name tags

If mustaches are your style, I made some fun and *FREE* mustache name tags I think you will like.  Enjoy!

I don't know about you, but I move my kiddos around more times than I want to buy new names tags.  So, I do NOT like taping them down.  It takes too much time, gets messy and is not conducive to moving kiddos around at a moment's notice.  :) 

I have been trying to work through this issue for a few years.  I know if is a weird personal issue, but I do not want to go back to tape.  Consider me a 'No Tape' kind of gal!  The first year I went 'no tape' I tried buying those clear sleeves - more work than they were worth.  The kiddos were constantly picking at them and it ended up being a bigger mess than tape.  The second year I attempted 'no tape' I tried doing absolutely nothing.  I just did a thorough job at teaching name tag responsibility and just let the name tags hang out on tables.  It went okay, but it drove me nuts when they weren't all lined up at the end of the day. So...  This year I am coming at it from a new direction.  Operation: No Tape just might be handled!

I attached velcro to the back of each name tag and the lined them all up on the tables!  Amazing!  Now the kiddos can move seats, take their name tags with them and I will have tidy tables at the end of each day!

Here is how I did it:


First I measure out my tables to find out where the middle of both the length and the width were.  Thankfully all of the tables have the same dimensions so I will only have to figure this out once! 

I marked the middle for both with a dry-erase marker.  It just wiped right off when I was done!


After I drew lines marking the middle of the table (which you cannot really see in the picture), I put the middle name tags down to see I liked the way the placement looked and then measured again.  I wanted to make sure the distance from both sides of the name tag to the ends of the table were equal.  I watch enough HGTV to know, "measure twice, cut once" - haha!

Okay, now that I know my measurements were correct, I measured the length of the name tag and cut a piece of construction paper to match. Then I marked each side of the paper about 2 inches and marked each space 1 inch wide - the width of the velcro!

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Now I was ready to stick the velcro on!  I made sure I lined up the construction paper at the top of each name tag (check to be sure) and then stuck it on.

Just as soon as I stuck the bottom piece on, I put the top piece on so that I could place them on the table.

**TIP- make sure you are consistent with the way your are putting your velcro down.  Otherwise, you may end up with name tags that cannot be moved around with ease!

Now they are ready to be placed on the table!  I placed them in the cpot I have measured and marked earlier, pressed down and VOILA!  I picked the name tag up in the picture below to illustrate how I can now pick up the name tags and move them around!

Now I can easily rearrange your kiddos without the headache of moving name tags!


**ANOTHER TIP - laminate the name tags before writing on them or sticking velcro to them.  This way you can easily change the name when a kiddo moves.

So many things to do to prepare for those brand new kiddos!  The next item I will tackle will be an engaging activity for the first minutes of the first day!  So visit again for an update soon!

In the meantime, what are some things you have on your to-do list?