Our first week back...

Welcome back to school! Being on a C-track year around school has its benefits...one is that we just went back on track...kids started back to school on Tuesday. This week has been spent reviewing rules, procedures...and we even had time to get to work!

 But...no need to worry...just because we were off for a month, I still spent some time in my classroom! I spent a day making some sensory bottles...I made a wide variety of them that I am introducing to my students a few at a time. They currently live in the Stress Free Monster Basket!

                                

Here are my 7 bottles. Most of them had settled at this point...the first one is water, melted glue and glitter...I dyed the water purple...the second and third bottles are corn syrup and glitter. The corn syrup is thicker, which then settles and flows to the bottom! The light blue bottle is vegetable oil and glitter dyed blue. The two blueish bottles on the right side are made with water and glycerin. These give a very cool swirling effect. The green bottle in the middle are water beads. I had actually started by filling it with water, and realized that you couldn't see anything. So I strained out the water, added green food coloring, and some glitter. This one is interesting because it moves around more.

I have only introduced my students to the purple bottle and the light blue bottle with glycerin...so far...they love them! I am working on teaching my students to use them when they feel anxious or stressed out! So far, it seems to be working. One of my students really likes the purple glitter bottle. I have also donated the red corn syrup bottle to a student next door...he rolls it on his desk and is beginning to use it to calm down!

                                      

Here is a picture of my Stress Free Monster Basket! It is a blue plastic basket that I picked up from the Dollar Store! Inside, I put some things that I also picked up from the Dollar Store or the dollar spot at Target. Inside the basket are two teddy bears, some squishy balls, and two of the calming bottles! I will introduce this to my students more this week...I want to start introducing them to ways to self-calm, since many of my students do not have those skills yet!

Some other fun things that happened this week:

I got my DonorsChoose project funded and most of it was delivered! I will post about the fun things that we use them for soon! My project was titled "Read and Re-Tell" and included a bunch of felt board items to retell books. The books that I included in the project are: Go Away, Big Green Monster, Elmer, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, Mouse Paint, and the tree from Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I also received a felt board story set that my students can create...and I am waiting for a Poem of the Week book! I am very excited to begin using all of these in my classroom!

With that, it is  late! Time to get ready for bed!