Several weeks ago I had the absolute pleasure of hosting 8 students who were then in the pre-K4 (4 year olds) in our future kindergarten room for a half hour. We read a story, wrote our names in 10 frames and counted the letters, talked about our goals for next year (that will be another blog post – it was pretty precious!), and explored what is currently the academic and explorations spaces.

Lake Tahoe School has step up day for all the grades and it’s a great tradition. I enjoyed meeting some of my future students and the then current kindergarteners were really excited to step up to 1st grade and be reunited with their co-teacher, Miss Diana.

The more I reflect on step up day for the students, the more I realize it was more of a step up day for me. I have been running Holm Construction for about 9 months and there was a steep learning curve that I’m still climbing! But in terms of education, I have been learning amazing, crazy over the top, mind blowing,and some very common sense lessons from friends on voxer and twitter since Zack was in the hospital last year — and haven’t had a classroom to try things out in. So now that I am heading back to a school setting, into my own classroom it’s time to step up. Step up my game as a classroom teacher. Step up plans for flexible seating. Step up ideas for teaching literacy. Step up into a private school. Step up with sharing on social media. Step up my game as a caregiver this summer so Zack is squared away and ready for what the school year will bring to him.

Step up day might be something the students look forward to all year but this year it turned out to be quite an awakening for me.