Weekend Warriors: Back to School COOL!

And so it begins.... another school year. I know some of you have been going at it for a while now, but for me I will meet my new friends on Tuesday and our first official day of school is Wednesday.

Today I am here to talk about Back to School Cool. Before I do that.... I do want to mention I have 2 mini giveaways going on right now....and I am promising more in the month of September.  September is crazy town so I decided to try and make it nicer with a few giveaways...go HERE to enter the current ones.

OK so the theme this month for Weekend Warriors is Back to School COOL.

In reality nothing feels that cool in September...not the weather and not my whole crazy life. I am feeling rushed, stressed and anything that is the opposite of "cool." Are you with me on that?

Anyway, back in June I posted {HERE} about a fun back to school idea and if you go to that post you can grab the freebie  which is the title sentence shown below with all 26 letters:

Basically, to summarize, the idea is that the kids are going to analyze their names for the first 26 days of school to decide, Yes I have this letter in my name and No, I don't have this other letter in my name.

So, because learning names is so important as you start the school year. Today I have another name-based idea that you can do in addition to the chart above or instead. I have used it in both kindergarten and first grade.

You may be saying, wow the cover of that book is kinda dirty? Why is she showing us that?

Well, here is my answer...it is only the MOST popular book in the classroom library all year and that means it is a bit tattered. And my fresh one for 2014 is not yet ready.

In kinder I use the FULL sheet of construction to make this little puppy because their writing in September is HUGE... but if you have firsties you could probably go smaller.

Here is the inside:

Typically we will complete one letter of the alphabet per day for the first 26ish days of school.

The title letters at the top are bulletin board letters. I only happened to do that one year when I had a whole bunch just sitting around because I bought those random square ones and I think used them on a bulletin once... so they are in the book. You could just write in the letter- or even use the letters available in the freebie above for the pocket chart...or get fancy with your Silhouette if you are lucky enough to own one.

Just click HERE or on the image to grab a new updated cover of the book!

When the book is complete you will have the most sought after book in your library, but you will also have a great discussion starter. Any time we have a few extra minutes in class my kiddos and I chat about it. We have noticed how full the pages for vowels are, or we have sorted the names on each page by whether they are found at the front or the middle of the name {capital vs lower case} and so so so many more things you can do with this book.

I think in order to form a feeling of family in your classroom it is important to do as many name related activities as possible in the beginning. I hope you can use this idea! Now go visit my Weekend Warrior friends to see what tips they have in store to keep you cool in September!

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