Get Ready for Back to School

I can't believe I am going to start talking about back to school! I feel like summer just started and I am SO not ready to start a new year! But with that said, I get a lot of emails asking me what 'themes' I teach and how I can still teach in 'themes' with all of the standards we have to meet.  These were my themes last year.  They were slightly changed as the year went on and I'm sure they will change again a little this year.
 I am always flexible and open to new ideas!

This year I know I am going to tie my All About Me unit in with the Five Senses unit and make that 3 weeks.  I've also cut back on the Gingerbread Unit to create more time for Holidays Around the World.  I'm also considering doing 2 weeks on just penguins and then spending the next 2 weeks on animals to make time for group research projects!! You can find some of my detailed plans on these thematic units by clicking on the image below. Hope this helps you see how I incorporate theme with the standards, science, and social studies!!

I also get a lot of questions regarding the beginning of the school year.  What do I do that first week of school? How do I start introducing centers? Etc. Last year I documented EVERYTHING I did the first two days of school and wrote about it HERE. 

This year I am keeping a lot of the same decor (found in the pack below) 

For some reason this past year I never took any pictures of my classroom set up!! But, you can definitely see some of the black and white decor pack in the background of my pictures! Here you can see the number posters hanging :)