Welcome Back Day 2

Yay!  I’m so excited about Girls Club this year.  Not that I wasn’t excited last year, but my year was dominated by morning sickness and as much as I wanted to be excited, the reality was I was just trying to get through each day.

For starters, I’m excited about their supplies set up.  I’m anxious to see if this area will remain OFF LIMITS to the rest of my family.  If not, I’ll have to find something else.  I blogged about these cubbies here.

We spent the day pretty much just going through the procedures.  There are a lot more now that they are a little older.

This is our “check in.”  We went through it as a group and the girls took turns, so it took really long.  But, that was good because they were all engaged and looked forward to making sure everyone did it correctly.  When I was a kindergarten teacher, we took two weeks to train the kids on procedure!

Everyone has school supplies this year.  I’m using their journals as a “catch all.”  Any writing we do will go here.  It makes tracking their progress a lot easier.  It’s also a great way to avoid sending home so many papers that take over the fridge.

They will also sign in every day.  I am using their name plate as a place marker.  If you can’t tell, I’ve blocked out the names.

A new procedure I’m doing this year is for circle time is to have a mat.  I had such a hard time keeping them from fighting over who would sit where and who was on the chair versus the floor, etc.  So, thanks to my dad who gave me a free 9’x12′ drop cloth (a good one too!), I just cut out a section to use just for circle time.  They did such a good job staying on the mat and it was a lot easier keeping them engaged.  It’s not cute yet, but I plan to sew on a cute border and paint a cute design on it.  I will also make a second larger one for messy activities that we need to do on the floor.  I can just throw it down and we don’t always have to be at the kitchen counter.

After we went through the procedures and the chicks got all their new stuff, we just had snack and free play until lunch time.

 For lunch, the chicks made pizzas…and funny faces.

I’m so excited for this year!  I think we’re off to a great start!

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