Passing on Their Wisdom

I need all the help I can get to be ready for a new school year.

Seriously, I bribe friends to cut out lamination and don't even ask my poor mom or husband about summer hours they've had to endure in my classroom.

I also like to enlist the help of the class before... in other words, my little cuties who are just a few days away from becoming first graders are helping me to prepare for new class in September.

I pump this whole little ditty up big time... "Since you guys are experts at all the rules by now...." because of course no teacher has anyone not following rules in June...right?

{Don't tell them that I have a hidden agenda....in addition to making a book I truly will use, I am tricking these guys into a much needed review! We only have a few weeks left... but my goodness, this is a much needed chat!}

The idea is simple. We make a chart of some of the rules:

{Can you tell it's June? Let's be real... in another month this chart would have had a lot more bells and whistles and I am looking at that smudge at the top and my "i" in kindergarten isn't even dotted...yikes! }
Also I love "You have to do what you need to do!" She thought long and hard about this and it's awesome!


And then we write about it.... and because I want to use this as a reference guide for new little friends I do want the spelling correct. Therefore, we do a "sloppy copy" and final draft rather just letting them write on their own.

And I was tempted to share ALL of these... but I know that's too much, but they are all awesome.

You know what is funny... their effort level was over the top because they wanted to make it so nice for those "little kids" it is designed for.

Aside from the fact that I am balding in the above picture.... I LOVE it all. Please appreciate all the detail on those kids on the carpet. 

Glad to see manners made an appearance this year.

And our "caddies" house all our supplies - you can see my post about them {HERE} but my littles know that keepin' them clean is important:

And it just makes me happy to see rules like this... even if they are doing handstands next to a beehive!

If you are wondering, I let them choose their rule so sometimes we get several of the same. Then any of my early finishers may do a second one to help me fill in the gaps {or ones from the year prior...shh! no one knows}

I just find the results are so much better if you are letting them choose their words of wisdom to pass on rather than assigning them a rule to write about.

And if you are hanging on with just a bit more time with your class... you may want to give this a whirl too! Click on it to download.

{fonts by Cara Carroll / frame by Scrappin' Doodles}