I've got the music in me!

It's that last week before school starts - you know the one - you have those last doctors' appointments, get a new hair cut and a pedicure, go to the beach that one last time and generally think about how you want to change the way your room looks this year. For me, it's time to start tossing and turning at bedtime as I think about the new year. Although I hate giving up those last lazy days of summer, I begin to get excited thinking about a new year and a new group of kiddos. When I lay down to sleep my mind runs wild with all the possibilities and I have to get up and write lists of things I don't want to forget.

Our theme at Chets Creek this year is "Orchestrating a Symphony of Student Success," so it will be singing and dancing each day! Each grade level has been given a different genre of music and kindergarten will be all country, so I guess I'll be boot scootin' boogyin' through the year. On the first day, each grade level and team presents a "skit" which can be just about anything so the Office Team has been practicing all week - which is certainly taking me to places I've never been before! I can't tell you what we will be doing because it is "TOP SECRET," so you'll have to tune in next Monday for the big reveal!

But... today, I received my "Welcome Back" letter from the Principal - you know the one - where the principal welcomes you back to the new school year, tells you what time to report for the first official back-to-school day, tells you they hope you had a good summer and gives you the new roster so you can speculate about all the changes! Well this year, instead of a letter, we received an e-mail with a new wiki that will house all of our resources for the year. How COOL is that! It's a private wiki only open to the faculty and staff because it has faculty phone numbers and addresses, but also has the Resource schedule, lunch schedule, Calendars, faculty and staff birthdays, the Handbook, Climate and FAME Surveys, Emergency Plans, maps of the school and even all those back-to-school forms! How convenient will it be to just pull up the wiki and copy a new form when you need it for the child that's lost it for the fourth time instead of sending to the Office to get one! And of course, mistakes can be corrected right then before the form goes out again. This wiki includes the entire first day back to school information! This use of technology will allow us to spend the day playing and enjoying the time back together, getting really excited about the new year... instead of listening dryly to the packet being read to us for the first day! We'll have time to sing and dance, think, brainstorm and... dream!

This video  is just a little hint of why I am so excited.