She's Here!!

My student teacher is here!  I'm so excited to have a partner to share my wonderful class with.  Not only did she start yesterday…but she will be with us all the way through May!!  My students were so excited as well.  We have a class so full of eager learners and I guess they can't wait to share their enthusiasm also.  I wanted her to feel so welcome and so I searched all my favorite spots and found some great ideas.

I found this amazing packet by Rachelle Smith at whattheteacherwants:

I created it to have several sections with tabs for her to keep track of different things like: class info, school info, curriculum documents, meeting notes, ideas, notes, lesson plans, etc.  She immediately began to put things into it.  Yay!

I also found lots of neat teacher things and put them all into a basket crate (that I might also add is VERY useful).  She took it home and was so excited to find all the goodies inside.  The "Dollar Spot" at Target was full of some great things.  I <3 it!  I'm pretty sure I bought duplicate things for my own teacher collections.

Then I tried to bottle up my kiddos excitement and had them do a quick "Welcome To Our Class" book.  First they drew a quick "selfie" and wrote some things about themselves.  Then they picked their Top 5 things they thought she needed to know about our classroom.  Some of them were HILARIOUS!  I loved finding out what things each student felt were important parts of our classroom. For example, I recently changed my wall-space in the classroom to put all of our anchor charts.  I divided a wall into headings of Reading, Writing, Math, and Science.  I guess it really makes a difference in one friend's eyes because that was his #1: "We have new posters in the CORRECT space!"  A few others needed to let her know that I was the first and foremost teacher because the made it clear that  "Our REAL teacher is Mrs. Strang."  Teehee!  I love them too!!   Here's a couple of pics of the book.  You can find it at my TPT store HERE for FREE!

Are any of you hosting a student teacher this semester?  Any advice to keep her feeling a part of our classroom and help her to become one of those fabulous teachers?