fyi. school started.

The chaos and craziness of the first week of school has started up in a whirlwind!  I brought in the school year with 24 new little monsters this year (which I adore!).  This new batch are incredibly smart, already so efficient, and I love them all!

Yes.  I kept the same theme in my classroom. 

Monsters are just so appropriate for a 2nd grade class.  I love monsters.  They love monsters.  It's love all around for monsters.

I even got a brand spankin' new lunch box this year that T sent me to school with on the first day.

Is it not the cutest?  Thank you Target for coming out with so many adorable monster dollar spot items over the summer.  I'm in love with it all (and probably went a little overboard buying every monster in sight). 

My classroom stayed the same with a few updated things and even some new parts!

Meet the Teacher Night was a big success and this year I wanted a sign-in table with examples of what items needed for the first day of school.  

Cute and simple.  I think I'll do it again next year!

A close-up.  Just as a reminder for me to remember what it looked like so I can replicate it next year.  I forget things.  It happens.

Does this door look familiar?  It should.  I gave in and did the same door from last year.  Except, I like his mouth much better this year.  

Helloooo purple monster.

I tried something new and had the parents fill out/sign all of the forms I usually have them sign at S.E.P's and had them do it during Meet the Teacher Night.

Another success!  Much more efficient and I've been able to concentrate on more important things during S.E.P's.  

Score one for Mrs. Kussee!

How they turned in their papers...

Again, this is really for my sake so I remember how I organized Meet the Teacher Night.  

Have I mentioned how much I love that Monsters University came out this summer?  Stores have gone craaazy with monster stuff.  Including juice boxes.  Yet another item I couldn't pass up.

Target is going to drain our bank account one of these days...

My incredible aunt that got me into teaching from the get go is now a facilitator.  Which meant that I got to go through her stuff and take what I wanted out of her classroom.   I got some gooood stuff.

Including this new bookshelf display that displays books with the covers showing.  This is the finished version after T and I went to town on it spray painting it red.

I love it.

After talking myself out of making birthday monsters this year, I talked myself back into it.  

Decisions decisions!

I just wasn't ready to give them up yet.  And the fact that I sewed on the facial features this year and then my mom sewed them together this year with her sewing machine.  Much faster than me hand-sewing them all.  

And the fact that I only had to make 26 this year rather than 36 made the decision a little easier to make...

I love the bright colors this year.  These monsters might be my best batch yet...

I also moved my calendar station this year.  My class can actually see it now instead of squinting and ruining their eyes to read what it said.  

AND the fact that I got rid of almost 10 desks in my classroom this year made it possible to have another carpet area.  Hallelujah for smaller class sizes!

New red carpet area.  The easel turned out extremely nice too after we took it apart and spray-painted it.

I just had to have another carpet area with all our extra space so T and I headed to IKEA for our annual classroom decor trip (my poor husband) and we picked up a bright blue carpet (that reminds me of a furry blue monster) for the front of my room.

It's awesome.  And soft.  And I hope that it doesn't get ruined when winter comes around...

Thanks to our family friend, Becky, I switched out the ugly velcro jobs with these cute monster clips.  I think it's safe to say that I adore them.

I also designed a new class clip chart!  I sell the digital copy of it on teacherspayteachers.com and surprisingly enough, people have actually bought it!  

Hello date money!

I also got brave and dyed the clips with R.I.T dye again this year.  I love how crisp the colors turned out!  

Everything else in the classroom stayed relatively the same.  It's bright, happy, and makes me happy to spend the majority of my day in. 

After Meet the Teacher the Night, I welcomed my brand new monsters into the classroom.

Let me tell ya, these kids are hilarious this year.  Seriously.  Good times are coming to Room 5.

And bytheway, my husband is adorable when he takes naps on Sundays.  

No really, he is.

See?  Told ya.