FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL VLOG! | First Year in Second Grade Vlog!

[Music] hello sweet friends welcome to a new vlog if you are new here my name is kim i am now officially a second grade teacher in west michigan because today is my first day of school and i'm very excited so i thought it would be fun if we get ready together we as in me i don't know if you're getting ready but i need to get ready and also if there is a mess in the background we're just gonna pretend there's not because back to school season am i right so i did not sleep super well last night i hoped i would because i was very tired during the day i don't know if you have this problem too but i'm often very very tired during the day and then night comes and all of a sudden i am not tired anymore whatsoever so that's what happened to me last night and i just laid there and kept thinking of what ifs and i don't tend to be a what-ifs type person but i was last night and so i am so excited to teach second grade but also i'm very nervous because it's just gonna be different you know it's different than teaching fourth and fifth grade and there's just so many more things i feel like that i need to think through because the students are going to be less independent though i do know that i still will have very high standards and so i know they'll still be able to do a lot and so i know it's gonna be just fine and i only have school today and tomorrow so today as i'm filming this it is september 1st it is a wednesday so we have school today we have school tomorrow which is thursday the second and then we have friday off and monday off for labor day and so it's just a couple days you know and so what could really go wrong in a couple days now that might be um my famous last words those might be my favorite last words but i'm hoping not so i did just find out yesterday that i had another student added to my roster and i just happened to like see them when i refreshed my page and so i'm so glad i did that i'm so glad i refreshed and looked at it and yes because there's just like so much movement and i'm in a pretty big building but we still only have like one main secretary and so you know she's just like running around doing all the things i already can't find something oh no okay anyways so i just happened to see that i had another student added and then didn't have a ton of information about the student so i did a little digging and now i am feeling pretty much good to go but i do need to add like a name tag today and a locker tag and you know just like all those little things that i label i need to add those this morning and then i just have like a bunch of little things that i need to do this morning i did stay yesterday we had professional development yesterday until four and then i stayed for a little while i got some dinner with a co-worker friend which is so fun and then i came back and did a couple more things but i really didn't want to stay like too too late you know because i wanted to make sure i got some at home time too we love a healthy home and work balance and i don't always have that and so that's something i'm working on so anyways yes it went really well yesterday i've had a couple days of training i am feeling mostly ready for students but also just a little nervous and i did have my first back to school nightmare of the year last night i dreamed that i had just a whole class full of kids who were not supposed to be on my list that they just showed up and so hopefully that doesn't happen that would be a big huge bummer but you know what i'll love whatever kids walk into the room it'll be just fine and i got to meet most of my students at open house on monday and i love them like i already love them i had so many moments where i just stood there and i was like oh my gosh this is where i'm supposed to be like it just kept hitting me and i was like oh my gosh i love them so much so i'm so excited to be teaching second if you're new to my channel it is like dream grade for me um i've been in fourth and fifth and now i'm just so ready to be with my littles and they're not even that little like they are little but like they just are so i don't know they're just so awesome because you can still have like great conversation with them they understand humor like i just feel like it is that sweet spot and i'm so excited and they just walked into the room and looked all around and some of the kids you could tell right away were like me as a second grader where they ran around they're like what's this what's this what's that like super curious and then other ones walked in and they were just so shy but a little bit smiley oh it was so cute and so i always said with my fifth graders and my fourth grader is that [Applause] you have this imaginary cool card and you have to put your cool card in your back pocket because you are not too cool for mrs hall's even if you think you are you're not and so i just don't feel like these second graders even have cool cards i don't think i even need to have that conversation like usually i take time the first day of school teaching about a cool card this year i don't think i have to do that i mean we'll see i'm gonna feel it out feel the class read the room but yeah that's a great um little hack though if you are an upper hall teacher or even maybe middle school you tell the kids about their cool card the cool card is what makes you say things are like cringy and stuff like that and you tell the kids that their cool card right now could be like in their heart and they need to take it and move it to their back pocket or the bottom of their shoe and if they feel like they're about to like pick their nose in public or something they grab that cool card and say ooh not gonna pick my nose in public but if they think about saying something is like cringy or something like that they just leave that cool card on the bottom of their shoe and let everyone carry on and don't yuck their yum let them have their fun and so anyways um i don't really remember where i was going with that except for i am super chatty this morning because i'm nervous and i get extra chatty when i'm nervous is anybody else that way so i don't want this whole vlog though to just be me chatting away about a whole lot of nothing so i think i'm gonna finish getting ready so let me know in a comment below if you are a teacher have you already had your first day because i know my school goes back considerably later than a lot of other ones so as you are watching this what number of days are you on so like how many days of school have you had i would love to know like are you on day 20 and you know we all have 180 days that's just like how it goes so we probably get out later than you if you've already started but that is what it is so anyways i'm officially gonna stop talking now i'm gonna have you meet me in my classroom and oh also i didn't even show you my cool shirt i got this shirt off etsy and then i tie or not tie-dyed it but i bleach dyed it like come on i saw a gal on etsy or not etsy um she had one like this and i chuckled because i was like um that's amazing i need it so i got my own hannah montana shirt and then i bleach dyed it and it was so fun and it was super easy i used toilet bowl cleaner so so anyways i will link it below if you're interested in getting your very own hannah montana shirt because like gosh how fun we could all match and if you wear it on like instagram or something you should tag me and we can just have like a whole squad wearing hannah montana shirts that would be so fun okay anyways i'm gonna let you go for real this time and i will see you when i see you [Music] okay i've had one more thing that i need to say before i finish getting ready so this portion of the vlog is actually being sponsored by hellofresh which is really very exciting so i filmed a little um well i filmed several clips of me cooking a hella fresh meal i love hello fresh and so let's go ahead and roll the clips here we go i really do not enjoy planning out my meals so having hello fresh makes my life a lot easier they have delicious meals that you can choose from each week to help you save time with meal prep and also with grocery shopping i love that everything is pre-portioned out so i don't have to think about what ingredients i'm going to need while i'm working on my recipe my hellofresh boxes come right to my front door and they make my weeknights after teaching a lot easier hellofresh is flexible so if you ever need to add on some extra meals or change your delivery day to better fit your changing schedule you have the ability to do that i know for me when i've been teaching all day the last thing that i want to think about is what i'm going to make for dinner i'm not much of a cook but even i can follow the recipe cards the other day i made this incredible chicken penne limon and it was absolutely delicious i even ended up having some leftovers to bring for school the next day so i could eat lunch [Music] [Music] when you sign up for hellofresh you can use my code elementary in the mitten 14 to get up to 14 free meals across your five boxes with hellofresh visit the link in the description box below for more details [Music] so [Music] so okay so now i'm in my classroom as you can tell let's make sure the mic is plugged in i believe it is okay so i have a bunch of stuff that i printed at home last night that now i need to just kind of assemble so i'm gonna grab my laminator out a minute and then my little like cutting machine thingy and yeah i just have like a lot of odds and ends to do nothing like super huge but just lots of little things and so i'm gonna work on those i'm gonna set some pencils out on the table because i'm not going to have the kids organize their supplies just yet because really all they're going to need for today is pencils and then maybe some crayons and i have all of those so i'm not too too worried so yes i am so excited so nervous i haven't eaten any breakfast yet because i like could not force myself to eat because i'm just like so excited and i have like a nervous tummy you know where your stomach like feels like i can't eat anything when you're excited nervous that's what i have right now but it is a little bit cooler out this morning which is good so i just opened my windows and i'm hoping that i will get some cool air in here i'm going to turn on the fans as well i had one going overnight but yes i'm going to turn on my two box fans and hope for the best so let's go ahead and prep for the first day of school yay oh should i show you my outfit really quick too let me show you my outfit so i got this dress from ann taylor loft and i got it on clearance i tried to find it online and i could not find it this morning so i apologize for that and then my shoes i've had forever they were from payless i believe and i don't think payless even exists anymore so yes that is the outfit for today and then i do have my cute little crown that i'll probably put on should we travel so we can go see that all right let's go see the crown so i put it over here so i wouldn't lose it hold on one second let me grab it okay so this is the crown that i'm going to wear to greet my students today it says welcome to second grade this is from festive yell and i do have an affiliate link with them that i will link below if you're interested i believe it gets you a discount as well and it's just so stinking cute i have a few of her crowns and i love all of them so yes i'm gonna wear this as i say hello to my students and then i will be wearing a mask as well so yes that is the game plan okay now let's go get some stuff done [Music] [Music] do [Music] okay bad lighting in my back room i know but i'm popping out so fast to just say that it has been a whirlwind of a day i am exhausted and i just need to tell you all about it later but i just need to pop in and just like let you know the here the now my back room is a big huge mess because i keep just like throwing stuff when i come back here to get something and it's a lot so anyways having a good day up also feeling a little bit overwhelmed um so yes i can't wait to tell you about it later but i need to go get my kids pretty soon so i will see you when i see you i feel like i look like a hot sweaty mess and that's because i am it is after school now and actually today i cannot complain because it was a little bit cooler out today we had a nice breeze going on and it could have been so much worse so i'm very grateful that it wasn't like super super hot in here today but i will say managing fifth graders and managing second graders is so different like so different i was on my feet all day i don't think i sat down at all all day and i was just like running around i was constantly like helping kids and there were a lot of kids who like didn't know how to tie their shoes and that was something i didn't really anticipate and just like those little things that i'm like oh my gosh i over planned like to the max like i always over plan for the first day but i think i only got through maybe a third of what i planned and usually i get through like at least half at least usually like two-thirds so it was a huge wake-up call and there's just so many things that i feel like i'm kind of like getting back into the groove of but my kids are so sweet and just so like excited to learn and excited about life and it's just really neat so i'm loving loving loving second grade but i just have a lot of things like running through my brain and i feel like that always kind of happens to me on the first day of school where i have my first day and i'm like okay i'm ready to change everything or not necessarily change everything but i'm just ready to like get to know the kids better and like find my groove if that makes sense because you know the first couple days you don't have your groove yet so i don't have my groove i need my groove um but i'm really really excited and my feet are really sore so i need to go home soon i just talked with some co-workers for a while i have really really sweet co-workers and i actually get to know them this year because last year we didn't use like the teachers lounge really and we didn't do any gatherings or anything like that and now we're kind of getting into a little bit more of that so like we had a staff picnic this summer and also just being on the other side of the building i'm in a very social area which i really enjoy so i have just been able to like talk to people and it's been so fun i love it so i'm just really enjoying this year so far even though it's day one i'm just enjoying it and yes i feel like i have like i said just so many things running through my brain right now so many things i'm already trying to figure out and i just don't know what to prioritize because i can't do it all i don't want to stay forever so what i am going to prioritize right now is i'm going to cut out some bookmarks for my students for their morning work tomorrow because that was something that i didn't have ready for them i didn't really anticipate that they would need bookmarks as much as like older kids would because most of them are reading picture books and i didn't really think about like if they stop in the middle of a picture book they want a bookmark to keep their place just like they would with a chapter book i just kind of assumed like you read the same book over and over again it doesn't really matter if you started at the beginning but that's not how they felt so that was good for me to know so yes i have some bookmarks and i was actually going to have them for the kids today but then i ended up not getting to them also i'll walk you through a couple of the things that we did today and a couple of the things that i learned so i had a word search on each of the students desks with all of their names on it and i know my best friend melissa has done that in second grade before so i assume second grade would be fine but a lot of the students were getting very frustrated with it right off the bat and so i don't think that was a great opening activity i thought it would go better than it did and that was partially just like i didn't know my students yet and i didn't know how it would go but there was a lot of frustration with that and the kids just being like this is so hard so we definitely need to do some growth mindset type lessons and just talk about like not giving up and all that fun stuff so we started the day with that and then we did a couple different read-alouds today we did the day you begin which i love that book and then we also did bu by peter h reynolds which i also love that one tomorrow we are going to do your name is a song which is one of my all-time favorites and i feel like there's another one we're doing tomorrow too but i don't remember what it is off the top of my brain so i'll have to look that up i have all my plans like on a google sheet so we have a couple more read-alouds tomorrow and then also it just took us a long time to talk about routines and procedures and practice some of those things and we had to keep practicing lining up because that was very challenging for us to like get in number order and so i started timing the kids to see how quickly and quietly they could do it and stuff and so we ended up by the end of the day we got our time down from i think it was like five minutes at the beginning of the day like literally five minutes to 24 seconds and we were all in number order it was amazing we were all quiet so that was a really good feeling because at the beginning of the day i was like oh my gosh what did i get myself into like i still loved them but i was like oh my gosh i was like what is happening but 24 seconds at the end of the day i can handle that so i would love to get it down to like 10 10 seconds maybe less who knows so maybe we can do that by tomorrow i'm feeling good about it so yes that was a lot of the day it was just like those routines those procedures practicing practicing practicing and i do think it's really important to do that and so that way the kids know their routines and i think a lot of kids really benefit from that and then school is just like a safe space where they know what to expect so we did that a lot today and we like made it fun like when i would time them and stuff like it was like super hype and then we learned our hallway chant and yeah all that kind of fun stuff you know routines procedures we also did an idea that i got from josie maniacs in the middle if you don't follow her on instagram you definitely should she has a ton of ideas that you could use for any grade so i did her little inferencing activity where you put different things about yourself in paper bags so each team table got a paper bag with something about me so one team table had like a little cat toy in it another one had my college pennant and so on and so forth and they had to work as a team to try to decide what the item meant about me and then they would share their inferences with the group and then i had a little like i said that funny i had a little slideshow that i went through with like pictures going along with each one so like for the cat one i had a picture of my cat jack for the grand valley one which is the school i went to i had a picture of myself graduating from grand valley which was my college and yeah so on and so forth and i think the kids enjoyed that and it was nice that they got to like open something up and do something so i'm almost thinking i need to film like a new vlog for tomorrow because i feel like i've been chatty in this one so i'm thinking i might make two separate vlogs i haven't really decided i might try to import this footage tonight so i can see how long it is but i just feel like i've talked talked which do you guys mind the talking vlogs i feel like they're not as fun as like setup vlogs when i'm just like talk talk talking but let me know if you feel differently because if you are willing to just listen to me chat i would love to film more vlogs like this honestly it's good for me just to kind of word vomit all of it out and then i can go back to this next year and see what went well and what didn't so note to future kim don't do the word search it's a trap also i tried to have them organize their own materials it did not go well and i'm sure it was a me problem because i just like expected that they could do a couple of things that we just like weren't quite ready for and like i said management of fifth grade and second grade is just so different and i'm still like wrapping my brain around it and so there was just a lot of like needs throughout the day like tying shoes and helping and all of a sudden somebody needs to do the bathroom and then somebody can't figure out the drinking fountain and like all these things like all over the place all the time but i know that once i train these kids and get them used to me and get them used to our classroom and our procedures and we build that relationship i know it's gonna get so much better the beginning of the school year is always weird it's just like a different kind of weird in the primary grades versus older grades but still so happy i'm here love these kids love the curriculum don't love the curriculum love the standards i should say for second grade versus older grades so yes i'm happy i'm tired i am just talking a mile a minute now i'm debating going out and getting snacks for my snack bin because a lot of kids did not have snacks today and our lunch is at 11 and so a lot of them are really really hungry by the end of the day and we only have like a few apples left over from breakfast so i might swing by sam's club on my way home and pick up some snacks i haven't decided though or i could go in the morning i guess before school i should probably go tonight if i'm gonna go so okay moral of the story i'm gonna get out the bookmark and then i'm going to go home i think and maybe i'll see you there maybe i won't maybe i'll see you tomorrow maybe i won't i don't really know i don't have a game plan so let's go cut out some bookmarks and then we'll talk these bookmarks are from mikael she is letters from no she's letters from michael i think now on teachers be teachers she used to be letters from fourth but she is awesome so definitely check her out she has so many awesome things and she's just like super artistic and fun so i'm happy to have these i use them every year i love them every year is in like last year and this year because i think she just started selling these last year but i love them she doodled these all on her own and they're super cute so here are the bookmarks and i'm just gonna leave a couple at each kid see i think i have enough for each of them to have two so i'm gonna leave two of these on each student's desk and then tomorrow morning when they come in while they eat their breakfast they can color these and it will be so fun okay so now it is thursday the second day of school i had to really think about that and it is our last day of the week so this is a nice short week which is just a good way for us to kind of get into it and i meant to edit all of the footage up until this point yesterday when i got home and i was so tired i fell asleep on the couch and then when i got up later i just kind of like hung out with my husband and hung out around the house and did a couple little things for school but nothing huge and yes so now i think i'm just gonna film a little bit today so that way i can hopefully make a vlog out of this but i wanted to share with you the couple of things that i worked on last night so i'm trying to make sure that we are staying organized because it's important and so i made some of these for just a couple different spots in our room where i took pictures of the spot and what it's supposed to look like and then i'm sharing with students like what's supposed to be in that area so those are book boxes and then i'm having my students use supply bags this year i've never done this before but we're going to try it out so we're doing this instead of like pencil boxes and i just have like these big baggies and i figured the nice thing about that is then they really nicely fit in seat sacks all the kids have the same thing and then also there's only like a few things that we're keeping in there so we just have crayons scissors glue sticks an expo marker and a pencil but i said they can have up to four pencils so four or less pencils and then the rest of these things and then i'm going to write each name at the top and then put this inside of their baggie so the goal is that only these things stay in their bag and we're not using the desks for any supplies in theory however i did have a lot of kids show up with like extra random pencil boxes and pens and just like random stuff that we aren't probably really going to use but we might use eventually so i don't want to like send it home but i also don't want to like mix it up with just like our class supplies because they're definitely like personal supplies that they brought if that makes sense so what i did is last night before i left i put all those extra supplies in their desk but because their desks are turned around they can't really access them and we're just going to talk about how we don't need to get into our desks unless mrs hall's asked us to get into our desks because we're grabbing like markers or colored pencils or something like that but i think keeping these supplies minimal is probably going to be the best course of action at least for the beginning of the year because we're definitely still learning like how to keep our spaces clean and our cleanup at the end of the day yesterday went a little bit longer than um i had hoped it just took a little bit longer for us to clean everything up because they just had so much stuff and so my hope is that this will kind of streamline it a little bit make life a little bit easier so what i'm going to do right now is work on cutting out all of this stuff and then i also made a new seating chart it's pretty much the same i just moved a few students around after like getting to know them and getting to know personalities a little bit more so i'm just gonna move a handful of desks around i'm gonna cut these out and i think that's basically all i need to do this morning i also haven't eaten breakfast so i just like brought a couple things with me to eat so i'll probably eat some breakfast and i'll share with you my outfit so let me pull you off the tripod and i'll go show you my outfit in my little affirmation station mirror okay so some of my co-workers and i ordered these matching shirts from etsy and one of my other co-workers picked it out and i said i will wear whatever you're wearing just order me one of the ones that you pick out because i just love to match so this is from etsy i don't know the seller off the top of my brain but i could probably look that up or ask a co-worker one of my other co-workers ordered it and then we just like venmo'd her so yes i don't know too much about it but it's super cute and then i have on this little jumpsuit this is an old navy jumpsuit and i'm just like tucking this kind of in i have like a rubber band in the back and then it's tucked under just to make it like a little bit more cropped so you can see more of the pants i don't know it is what it is it's not like it's not perfect it's gonna be hard to use a bathroom but that's okay and then i wore flats today in my most comfortable flats that i own these sandals are from old navy because my feet hurt so bad from yesterday and running around in heels all day like literally my feet hurt so bad when i got home they were hurting all night and they still hurt when i woke up this morning so yes the most comfortable shoes i own because we are running all around in second grade so yeah that's the outfit for today and now i'm gonna go work on prepping those things for today so we can have a great day also i need to open the windows because it's a lot cooler outside than it is inside right now so hopefully we can get all that cool air into the classroom [Music] okay so now it is friday i am comfy cozy i don't have school today and i'm actually going to a facial in a couple hours which will be a really good way to just kind of relax and recharge and then also my husband chris took the day off today too so we can hang out and i just feel like after a couple days of the beginning of the school year and all the chaos it is much needed to just kind of relax and recharge so i'm really looking forward to that overall we did okay this week i honestly just feel like i have a lot to learn still because any of those placements that i had in younger grades when i was in college it was always you know something that i started after the beginning of the school year after all those routines and procedures were in place and so all that hard work had already been done and so it was kind of a wake-up call a reality check and i just want to put that out there because i know there are other people who are probably watching this video who've gone from an older grade to a younger grade and been surprised and felt like oh my gosh what is happening and it is just like a huge yeah it's a huge learning curve i've always prided myself on having really good classroom management and being able to build some great relationships right off the bat and stuff like that but it just takes some time and so i'm trying to give myself grace but the second day we ended up you know having some of those routines and procedures down already which was really exciting so my students knew how to line up and how to come to the rug and just you know those little things that they just take some practice and so that was definitely affirming having those routines down and it's just something we're gonna have to keep working on though too with so many different procedures because there are like a gazillion different procedures throughout the day so i'm trying to rest easy though knowing that we are going to get there and i have talked to you before in the past about how my students last year just like meshed so well together and i think i was just very very lucky with that group because that does not normally happen and this year my group just does not mesh as well a lot of them mesh really well but there's just some like conflicting personalities and so that's been kind of a hard thing to tackle trying to keep some of my kids you know distant from one another because they do better when they're not right by each other but of course those are often the kids who tend to gravitate together so i'm trying to just figure that out as well and make sure that i'm doing what i can as a teacher to provide them with experiences working with people who maybe it's kind of hard for them to work with but then also setting them up for success so it's been a lot to think about and i was just like so out of it last night like i was just there were so many thoughts going through my mind and and i just wanted to sit there and like plan it all out and think like okay what am i going to do next week what is this going to look like what is this going to look like but i have to remember that it is important for me to take some time off as well because if you don't then you will burn out and i do not want to be burnt out for these students they deserve more than that so i do need to take some time this weekend and just kind of make a game plan i already changed some seating arrangements to better fit the needs of my students but i don't know i need to think over groups and um maybe like i like i have my kids line up in number order because in the lunchroom they have to sit on their number for contact tracing purposes because they don't have their masks on and even in the classroom we are doing contact tracing as well and so anyways um i have them lined up in number order so they can just quickly go to their seat in the lunchroom but you know you're not always gonna have two number order kids um work really well standing by each other in line so i might need to do a little bit of movement in there so just like a lot to think about and i think i mentioned earlier in this vlog there's always a lot to think about the first couple days of school but i just feel that especially this year because like i really want to do a good job i wanted to be in second grade i begged and whined and pleaded to be in second grade and i just really want to do a good job i want to do right by these kids they're super awesome and i just want to be the absolute best teacher that i can for them so if you have any tips or tricks in the lower grades of managing those conflicting personalities and managing just your classroom as a whole things that you do for like transition times were a little bit difficult independent work was really challenging so any tips tricks i would love to hear those in a comment below like i said i would like to think that i do have really good classroom management that's something that i have always like prided myself in so it's not necessarily that i feel like my classroom management wasn't good if that makes sense it's just it's different you know and you can't do the exact same things with fifth grade that you can do with second grade and i'm sure that's true for every grade so anyways um yes i would love any input in a comment below and um my eyes are like barely open because i'm like so tired still i've been up for like hours i've literally been up for like five hours no not five four hours at this point and i'm still so tired but anyways thank you for joining me in my first couple days of school overall we had a really great couple days and now i'm glad that we get some days off to recharge and relax and nap and sleep and all that fun stuff and i'm so excited to see my kids again on tuesday and just get to start fresh almost again with them so it'll be a great week next week i'm sure too and i will of course vlog it so thank you so much for watching this vlog if you enjoyed it please make sure to give it a thumbs up also if you are not already subscribed take a moment to subscribe below and turn on that post notification bell so you are notified every time i post a new video i forgot to read there for a moment okay thanks so much for watching i'll see you in the next one bye [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Elementary In The Mitten

Views: 14,605

Rating: 4.9468436 out of 5

Keywords: Elementary in the Mitten, teacher vlogger, teacher vlog, 4th grade teacher, new teacher, teacher weekly vlog, day in my life vlog, day in the life of a teacher, first day of school, back to school vlog, bts vlog, first day of school teacher vlog, 2nd grade teacher, teacher daily vlog, teacher back to school

Id: 5MrBHo4js6E

Length: 32min 43sec (1963 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 05 2021