Herding Kats in Kindergarten

Life Cycles and a Sale!

2013-05-05T19:36:00.001-07:00

Hi friends! Woo this pregnancy at nearly 40, plus all the end of school activities, plus all the extra curricular activities of my other kiddos, is really wearing on me these days! I'm hoping to be blogging on a regular schedule once everything settles down - which is is only 13 school days from now!

Source: google.com via Erin on Pinterest

We get May 17th off since we didn't use our inclement weather days - which I was bummed out about in February but I am thankful for now! Plus I am taking May 9th off to go see the perinatologist and get my ultrasound! We are still debating whether or not we will find out the sex - we did with the other 4, but honestly I already had "mother's intuition" about them (I was right each time!) but with this baby its hard to tell. Don't take this the wrong way, because I love my boys with all my heart and I'd be overjoyed with another one, but since this is ABSOLUTELY the last one, I am really hoping for a girl. My boys are hoping for a girl as well - partly because they don't want to have to share their room and toys with yet another brother, but also because they are eager to have a little sister :)

Oh, and by debating, I mean that I am waffling, and my husband is emphatically saying that he's finding out whether I do or not. Apparently he's decided not to leave the dr's office unless they tell him. I have no clue why he's so gung-ho about it, but he's taking the day off work to go with me, so I guess he means it! Of course, if he finds out, I'll have to find out since I can't stand him knowing something I don't! I'm actually thinking we may have a little gender-reveal party with the kiddos since I don't think we can stuff all 4 of them into the exam room with us. I'm just hoping there are no tears if its a boy lol (from me or the kids!)

Alright, enough of the personal stuff, let's talk school. We had a fabulous Spring program the other night - it was called "The Naughty Bunny" and the three class were divided into birds, bunnies or fish. My class were birds, and just for fun the music teacher made them all Angry Bird masks. At the evening performance I had 20 out of 26 kiddos show up which was outstanding for our school. As they put on their shirts and masks, we had some time to kill and one of my little birds piped up and said "Can we read?" which just melted my teacher's heart of course. Soon I had piled of little birds around the room, enjoying Mo Willem's Elephant & Piggie books which are their absolute, hands down favorites and oh my! if you don't have any for your class yet you need to get them!

In other news, our chicken eggs have not hatched - I suspect a problem with the rooster as very few seemed to have been fertilized :( This is the first year I have had this problem - but luckily, we have a feed store in town that sells baby chicks so some of the eggs will miraculously hatch Monday night and on Tuesday morning we will find adorable baby chicks when we enter the classroom! I know, I know, deceitful of me, but its in a good cause :)

In other life cycle news, my pregnant butt nearly fell into the creek trying to catch these critters:

Of course, I had taken my 4 children to the creek with me, with the intention of having them do the wading and catching, but apparently my children are too squeamish to put their feet in creek water. Only 1 our of the 4 was brave enough, and only after he saw very pregnant mama doing it (and slipping on algae covered rocks! My equilibrium is not what it was!). I think he was partially motivated out of fear that I would do myself an injury, but whatever, the reason it worked! We went home with 3 tadpoles, after releasing the snails and crawfish we caught. I feel better about having caught the tadpoles ourselves - not only was it a fun experience, now I know exactly where to release them once they are frogs, and I know they are indigenous to our area!

Alright, I am going to work on lesson plans now - and order my end of year BragTags before I forget again! I'll leave you with this little tidbit - in honor of Teacher Appreciation Week there's a big sale going on at Teachers Pay Teachers! My store will be on sale, plus there's a code you can use the get an extra 10% off everything! Check it out May 7th & 8th!

Here are some fabulous Kinder and 1st grade stores that are also joining the sale:

Mrs. Wishy Washy Giveaway!

2013-04-20T17:30:00.000-07:00

I was recently contacted by Hameray Publishing to review Joy Crowley's new collection of easy reader books. I've used Mrs. Wishy Washy in my classroom for years, so I was thrilled to check out what Hameray was offering!

I received two books to review (Disclosure: I received complimentary products for review. All opinions are my own and this is not a compensated post.)

"Wishy-Washy Clothes" is a short, easy to read book in the "Early Birds" series that focuses on predictable text and high frequency words. This would be perfect for emergent readers. If you read aloud Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm beforehand they will have the added benefit of making text -to-text connections, as well as having the schema of Mrs. Wishy-Washy and her animals. The humorous text and pictures are high interest as well.

The 2nd book I looked at was "Mrs. Wishy-Washy and the Big Wash from the Joy Cowley Collection. In this book, Mrs. Wishy Washy takers her animals to town to find water. Again, the story and illustrations are humorous, which will make it high interest. As well, the book contains rhyming words and onomatopoeia and would be great for teaching punctuation such as quotation marks. I appreciated that at the back of the book there were some teacher tips for Before, During and After reading.

There are already a ton of Mrs. Wishy-Washy resources at Making Learning Fun, and I often use Mrs. Wishy-Washy when I teach my farm unit, so I think that adding these easy readers to my book library will be a big hit! If you're interested in picking up some of these books you can use coupon code ZJCC13 now through 6/30/13 for 20% off your purchase at Hameray Publishing.

Hameray Publishing is also have a huge giveaway over on Facebook for over $400 worth of Joy Crowley books, cds and finger puppets! Just click here to go nominate your classroom!

They also have a great Pinterest board for Mrs. Wishy-Washy! Check out all of their fun boards and ideas!

Finally, you can win your own Big Book copy of a Joy Crowley book! My kiddos love big books! Just enter via the Rafflecopter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Buggy Freebie!

2013-04-14T19:12:00.001-07:00

Sigh...its already Sunday night :( I feel like I got so little accomplished - I really need longer weekends! I caught up on sleep yesterday, but other than that and grocery shopping, I am sadly underachieving!

Well, wait, I did manage to take a Mr.Clean pad to my stairway - it is amazing how quickly little fingerprints build up! And, I did manage to get a start on a Praying Mantis Life cycle pack - I was originally creeped out by those little guys, but after hatching them in class one year I am now a big fan - they're actually kinda cute! I also got a start on lesson plans - have to finish those up after this quick post!

Oh, and I used the random number generator thingy to pick a comment to win the Butterfly Life Cycle pack! Congrats to #9, Lisa! It's on its way via email Lisa!

If you are not Lisa, here's a small consolation prize - an Insect Themed CCVC "I have... Who has..?" game! My students love this game format - and if yours are anything like mine, this is the time of the year where you need lots of little fun breaks, otherwise you end up with the squirmy wormies, the ceaseless chatterers or the imps of destruction - I had one young lady actually use a dry erase marker on my carpet the other day! I tell you, spring time makes their little brains go haywire or something!

Anyways, you can check it out here:

And, just to infuse this post with as much Butterfly love as possible, check out this giveaway from Simply Kinder - it ends tonight so be quick! You can win a Butterfly Garden from Insect Lore!

Alright, back to the laundry and lesson plans that are waiting on me! Have a great week!

Our Classroom is ALIVE!

2013-04-12T19:00:00.002-07:00

This is my absolute favorite time of year - I look forward to getting to school in the morning so I can check on all the living things in our room!

First up, our plants are growing like weeds! The seed packets listed the earliest germination at 7 days, but ours have sprouted up after only 5 days! So far our forget-me-nots have outpaced the cantaloupe and turnip seeds, but yesterday we saw the first sprouts in the other pods, so it shouldn't be long now before the whole greenhouse is full of green shoots:

In order to monitor the progress of our plants, each student has their own folder containing their Plant Life Cycle materials. So far we have started our observation journal, completed the plant labeling page and started working on the life cycle pages.

Next, we got our eggs this week! We have at least 3 different breeds of chicken eggs. I put out a call on Craigslist, and had a sweet woman who raises chickens bring 42 eggs to our school! We have green, blue and reddish brown eggs and it was fascinating to see the differences in width and length. We set them up in our incubator in the corner:

Here's what the different eggs look like:

We also started our Chicken Observation Journal, which provided some interesting insight into who my pessimists and optimists are:

I was rather amazed that so many students had so little faith in me to think that 0 of the eggs will hatch! I counted about 6 that said "0" while many chose numbers < 10! I've actually had tremendous luck with hatching - each year we have better and better results. I may soon have to retire and take up chicken farming if I get any better at this! If you have been thinking about hatching chicks and haven't taken the plunge yet, I recommend this incubator and turning rack. This site is also full of great advice!

All of our Chicken Life Cycle materials are kept in blue paper folders, while the Plant Life Cycle materials are kept in green ones. I scored them for 10 cents a piece before school started, and it makes it so much easier to keep everything organized to have individual folders for each student and Life Cycle! Now I can just say "Pull out your blue folders." and know that everyone will have the appropriate materials at their fingertips.

I also have the file saved to my laptop so I can pull it up on the Smartboard as needed. Check out how intently my kiddos were studying our KWL chart:

We also added that we need to find out what the comb and wattle are for, after we completed our labeling page (I honestly had no clue when they asked and decided I would wait until they found out and could tell me). Unfortunately, due to testing our school library is closed for 2 weeks, so we can't go to the library en masse to do research. I will just have to check out a huge assortment of books and have them research the topic in class :)

Before I forget, Jennifer was the lucky winner of my Plant Life Cycle pack - congrats Jennifer, I'm emailing you the pack now!

(Who says 13 isn't a lucky number?!)

That's it for our Life Cycles this week, hopefully next week we can start our Butterfly Life Cycles if the caterpillars arrive!

If you'd like to win this pack, please Rustle Up a Response below and let me know how/if you study life cycles in your classroom! Frogs, preying mantis, ladybugs anyone? I'll choose a random response sometime before Sunday night :)

Planting Seeds (and a Winner!)

2013-04-06T22:09:00.001-07:00

I will not lie to you friends, this week was HARD! We had 3 days of rain (ie inside recess) AND our Music teacher was out for 3 days so planning time got cut to 20 minutes. I don't know if its the pregnancy thing or what, but one 20 minute break from 8:30-4:00 just isn't enough any more!

Luckily, we had some good times with our Plant Life Cycle unit. I love teaching this unit since we most of my kiddos have very little experience with growing things. Most live in apartments or a trailer park, so gardening is not an activity they usually take part in. We started our unit by reading two books:

I love how well these two go together - and the personification of the seeds in The Tiny Seed makes reading the book aloud so much fun - the kids gasp and call out and there are many choruses of "Aww!" when a seed "dies".

Once we read the books, I showed the kids our little greenhouse and some seed packs I had purchased. The greenhouse has 36 peat pods, so I figured we'd plant use 12 each for 3 different seeds. Here's what it looks like:

We had a choice of 6 different seeds, so we did some quick internet research on each, then we voted. I don't know about your class, but in mine the kids always tend to vote together - so if little Johnny chooses Turnip all of his little buddies do the same, and the same with little Mary and her friends. It drives me up the wall for some reason (I want them all to be leaders, not followers - even in the instance of choosing seeds lol!). So, this time I turned our board around and called them behind it one-by-one for secret voting.

Surprisingly, most of the boys ended up picking the Forget-me-nots - I had totally thought they would go for the cantaloupe or turnips, but maybe they envision taking a flowering plant home to mama (after the seeds sprout we will be transplanting them to individual pots to take home).

Then it was time to plant our cantaloupes, turnips and forget-me-nots. The neatest thing was the difference in seed sizes:

Here are a few pics of little hands taking turns being gardeners (disclaimer, I do not garden much myself, so I just have them plant 3 seeds in each pod and cross my fingers that we get enough to sprout so that everyone has a plant to put in a pot later! Maggie from Maggie's Kinder Corner told me a great idea - plant flower seeds, then go to your local nursery and purchase enough plants to replace the seedlings with - that way you can swap them out one Friday afternoon and the kids will be wowed on Monday to see how much their flowers have grown! This would be a perfect Mother's Day gift too!)

After planting we made predictions on which type of seeds would sprout first. We read each package to see the germination time table and then tried to make educated guesses from there. This was a tricky one for my kiddos - only 2 were able to really ignore which seed they had personally chosen and make a true prediction based on the germination info - the rest just chose the kind of seed they wanted to grow the most lol!

Once each pod had been planted, we replaced the cover and set it on our windowsill in the sun:

I absolutely love my windowsill - I try to keep green plants on it year round, along with our aquarium and crabitat!

Now that our seeds are planted, we can get to work on all the goodies in my new Plant Life Cycle pack! It has a labeling page, observation journal, KWL charts, life cycle pages, an easy reader and more! You can win a copy for your class by Rustling Up a Comment below! Just tell me what kind of seeds you plant in your classroom :)

And, the winner of the Chicken Life cycle pack was #8, Erin! Your pack is being emailed right now Erin, thanks for your comment!

Bunnies, Chicks and A Chance to Win!

2013-04-01T19:16:00.002-07:00

This is the time of year that I love to teach! Not only do I get to hit all the fun topics (we are doing life cycles and our eggs are coming this week!) but the kids themselves are so much more capable and independent!

Last week we did a fabulous Egg Hunt craftivity and writing prompt from Valerie of All Students Can Shine. She blogged about how her class made the craft here. Once I saw it, I knew my class had to make it too!

I was so stinking proud of their writing! We started by writing a story whole-group. It was great! Everyone was thoroughly involved in brainstorming ideas, making suggestions and making sure it all flowed together. My little ELL guy who usually doesn't take part in discussions had his hand in the air nonstop! Here's what we wrote together:

Once we had written the story whole-group I sent them back to their seats with their own paper and they got to work writing their own versions. I even had several students request multiple sheets of paper - I had to run down to the copy machine to make extras since I hadn't planned on that! Here are some examples:

Once we were done with the writing (and what is it with my kids and coloring this year, none of them enjoy coloring at all - its like pulling teeth to get them to do it!) we got to work on the bunny! I worked with them in groups of 5-6 and everybody did a great job, although I did have to repeat instructions a lot. It boggled my mind that I had to keep repeating "Trace 2 ears." because so many kiddos were apparently under the misapprehension that bunnies somehow only have one ear, regardless of the fact we were sitting right in front of my example! Sigh....

I didn't get any pictures of the basket weaving part because my phone died, not to mention, trying to do this with 26 kiddos and no aide was a little tricky! I did this part whole group because I am crazy that way. I mean, who knew "Over, under, over, under." would be that difficult for kids to understand?! Luckily we got through it without too much trauma on my part, and I have to say that the results were well worth it! Here are some of our cuties:

So, yes, we are actually getting it now! Those lightbulbs are going off daily, if not hourly! Today, after my kiddos had finished their work I was so proud of how they scattered through the room, eagerly working on different things. This pair was reading Elephant & Piggie books together - they each had a copy and one read the part of Gerald while the other was Piggie - wish I had been able to videotape it because the voices and expressions were priceless!

Others worked on sight word practice, still others were writing sentences with our spelling words on dry erase boards (I bought new markers last week and they are in dry erase heaven! It is amazing how engaged they are simply because we have colorful markers again rather than the standard black) and a few even asked for some dice so they could create math problems for their friends to solve! Gotta love it when they love practicing their skills and helping each other!

I mentioned that we will be getting out eggs this week. I am so excited! I created a Chicken Life Cycle pack for it, that you can find here:

I'd love to give a copy away to a random commenter, just Rustle Up a Comment below! The pack would be great if you hatch eggs in your classroom, but if you don't you can just skip the observation journal and still have 10 activities to use!

Do You Need a Donorschoose Donation?

2013-03-27T10:16:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post! I just got an email from Donorschoose giving me a $25 gift code. No one in my school has a project up, so I have no one to donate to! If you have a project up, please leave a link in the comments. I'll choose one project to get the $25 donation tonight at 9pm :)

UPDATE: Wow, I did not expect to have to make such a hard choice! There are 25 wonderful projects for me to choose from and honestly I can't decide. I'm going to let the random number generator pick for me:

So I am making a $25 donation to Allison's project for books in the Zack Files series:

http://www.donorschoose.org/project/the-zack-files-weird-yes-fun-yes-ki/970952/?verify=-476289548#materialsList

Thank you so much for all of your comments and I hope all of your projects get funded!

Two Freebies and Some Game Ideas

2013-03-24T13:01:00.002-07:00

Today is the last day of my Spring Break :( I am planning to commemorate it with a trip to Payless to buy shoes for my son, followed by a stop at Cherry Berry which is a local frozen yogurt shop. Then I have to get my butt in gear and do some lesson planning!

In the meantime I'm leaving you with a few ideas for the season (how did Easter sneak up on us so quickly?!). These are some of the games/activities we'll be doing this week!

First up, a little addition freebie! Just click on the pic to grab it in my TPT store :)

And here are a couple of things in my TPT store

Working on blends? My students love playing I have..Who has? games and this bunny themed one is always a favorite!

Need some review with word families? Here's a fun bug themed game:

And a ladybug themed I have..Who has? game for more cvc word practice:

There's a similar game for cvce words if your students are working on Magic E!

And, for math centers this week:

And a quick color-by-sum freebie!

Hope that helps you with lesson planning this week! Have a great one!

Fun Finds, Plus Ten Frames and Sight Words!

2013-03-23T16:58:00.002-07:00

If you are in the Kansas City area, you are so lucky! When I went to our blogger meet-up, Erica of The Eagle's Nest (she's from Joplin, MO) introduced us to a fabulous teacher store: U.S. Toy. Apparently there are other locations in Chicago, Denver, Houston, Los Angeles and Orlando, so if you live near one, you need to go see it!

Here is the panorama shot of the store:

I could have spent all day in this place! As it was, I made out like a bandit on several purchases:

I bought stamps for Ocean, Dinosaur and Insects:

I plan to use these to encourage writing - they can stamp their story and then write about it!

I also got these super cute spin top dice - how cool are these for jazzing up math center? Not to mention the fine motor practice they'll get while spinning! I'll have to set up some kind of try to keep them in - I plan on having them spin two and add or subtract them :)

Then I bought a whole slew of mini erasers - penguins, sports balls, candies and fast food:

I will use these in Math Center too - as manipulatives for counting, adding and subtracting, as well as game tokens.

I'm kind of glad that U.S. Toy is so far away - I would spend far too much money if there was one near me!

In other news, I created a new Animal Ten Frame pack! This one is for your Ocean, Farm and Zoo/Jungle themes!

I adore these graphics, and the fact that my kiddos will know exactly what to do with the cards and recording sheets since we've used similar packs in the past. I love activities that I can switch out easily to match themes, but that don't require me to reteach the whole center!

I also made some more Sight Word card games - each one covers all 220 Dolch Words and can be played 3 ways. I also included blank cards so you can add your own words if you want! Just click on the images to check them out in my TPT store!

Be sure to keep an eye out on my Facebook page tonight for some fun flash discounts!

Silver Dollar City Disappointment!

2013-03-21T16:35:00.001-07:00

I'm home! A day early and with lots to tell about our Spring Break! Here goes:

I had a blast at the Midwest Blogger meet-up with Kaci of Mrs. Hoffer's Spot, Elizabeth from Mrs. Hodge and Her Kindergarten Kids, and Erica from The Eagle's Nest. Shopping, talking and laughing like you wouldn't believe! If you are a KC area blogger we are definitely getting together again this summer, so keep an eye out for another meet-up, you definitely won't want to miss it! I have lots of pics to share and I want to show you some classroom goodies I bought (and introduce you to a marvelous teacher store!) but that will wait for tomorrow's post once I unpack :)

Today thought, I have a bit of a bummer of a story to tell. After the KC meet-up we headed to Branson, MO to visit Silver Dollar City for the first time. They have a good military discount, and we'd heard good things, especially about their new roller coaster, the Outlaw Run, so we were excited to check it out. Usually, I don't share much personal stuff, but I figure that all teachers have Spring Break (at least in the States) so you all might be looking for vacation ideas and its only fair to warn you.

I can sum up our visit in 4 words: "long lines" and "big disappointment"!

After parking (which was free, gotta give them thumbs up for that), we headed to the gate to buy our tickets. The park opened at 9:30am and we got there at 10am, so you can imagine our confusion when we stood in a non-moving line for over an hour to buy tickets! Sure, you expect a bit of a wait at the ticket lines, but we literally stood still for 45 minutes before they opened up more booths and we were finally able to shuffle forward a bit.

We finally got our tickets (1 hour, 15 minute wait time) and got inside the park. We headed for the measuring station because the parking lot tram operator had advised us to do this to avoid wait times at rides where our youngest would have to be measured again and again all day - far better to get measured one time and get a handy wristband so we knew up front which rides he could go on. Well, guess what? Another 25 minute wait! Yep, we stood in the measuring line for 25 minutes because they only had one employee on duty. Good news was, he was tall enough to go on every ride in the park except for the Wild Fire roller coaster!

We rode the Royal Tea Party ride which was fun for the kids, then headed over to the Powder Keg roller coaster. The line didn't seem long, so we settled in to wait some more. It took 45 minutes to get on the ride! (For those keeping track, that's 2 hours and 25 minutes of line time now). My family enjoyed the ride, and was excited to keep riding. We headed over to the Fire in the Hole ride but that line was at least 45 minutes as well. By that time it was 1:30, and we were getting hungry.

Every food booth in the park was crowded with 15+ people standing in line and no where to sit, so we decided to hit up a restaurant instead. At the front of the park they have a Lucky Silver Mine restaurant that features an all-you-can-eat buffet of brisket, chicken and beef stew. The line didn't look long from the outside of the building, so we hopped in it. Soon we were inside a mine shaft, heading down into the restaurant. Unfortunately, we were deep in the shaft when we realized this was not going to be a short line. Still, we chitchatted with other guests and made the best of inching our way forward. Ultimately we arrived at the restaurant only to see tons of empty tables. Hmm, if there are empty tables, why the long wait? Ahhh, because the waitresses were also acting as hostesses and busboys, so as you went through the buffet you then had to wait in line to be seated because the waitresses were trying to serve drinks and bread, clear tables, and write tickets, all while people were waiting to be seated! It was a 1 hour and 30 minute wait that even the good and plentiful food did not make up for!

After lunch we headed for Thunderation roller coaster which was the highlight of the trip - my family thoroughly enjoyed the ride and said it might perhaps be the perfect family ride - not too scary for the little ones, but still fun for Dad. Amazingly, this had only a 30 minute wait time!

My husband really, really wanted to ride the new Outlaw Run roller coaster, so we headed to the back of the park next. All day long we had kept an eye out, and often seen the ride not running, or running with empty cars. We figured they were still working some bugs out, but hoped that it would be running smoothly by afternoon. When we got to the back of the park the sign said it was an 84 minute wait, but it wasn't actually running. My husband checked with an attendant who said they were working on it, but it shouldn't be long. My husband and one son decided to get in line while I took the rest of the kids to the Hi Lo Silo ride where we stood in line for another 30 minutes for a ride that was literally 75 seconds long.

Next I took the kids over to the Fire in the Hole ride. This may have been more fun in warm weather, but since it was cold they had turned off the water effects, which meant it was a bit boring. Certainly not worth the 25 minute wait! Once we got off the ride I figured we still had time before my husband was done with the Outlaw Run, so we stopped for a cookie and hot chocolate break which was yummy and the prices were on par wtth other amusement parks.

Once our snack was done we headed back to Outlaw Run only to find a flood of people exiting that area. Luckily we ran into my husband almost immediately. He and my middle son were very disgruntled. Apparently, they had stood in line, watching as the staff ran empty cars and then a car with a mechanic through through the ride. As the mechanic passed the line he gave the thumbs up signal and everyone in line cheered. At that point the line started moving, and finally, after a 75 minute wait, the station was in sight! Unfortunately, there was some kind of medical issue with a passenger either on the ride or in the station, and they shut the ride down again. In order to get the paramedics to the person, they cleared the entire line out and announced that they would not reopen the ride that day. Yep, 75 minutes of waiting for nothing!

We decided to head back to the Grand Exposition to some kiddie rides in hopes that the lines wouldn't be long. Thunderation's line was only about 10 minute long at that point, so it got another spin. Then we headed to the Magnificent Wave Swing Carousel. The line was very short and after 5 minutes we were on board. And then we sat. And sat. Apparently there was an issue with the wind and whether the ride could still operate. So we sat and waited for the phone to ring. After 15 minutes total wait time (10 minutes actually on the swings), we exited the ride without riding. By this point three of our kids were begging to go back to the hotel. My youngest wanted one turn on The Electro Spin ride, so we stood in line for that one a good 15 minutes. The park had announced with was staying open until 7pm, but no one was interested in staying any later, so we headed for the exit.

We boarded a tram for our parking section and then sat and waited for more people to fill it. Then we sat and waited some more. At this point, we were so accustomed to waiting that we didn't even wonder why, it just seemed to be the modus operandi of the park. After about 10 minutes of waiting, we were instructed to disembark and reload onto another tram, as ours was experiencing some sort of difficulty.

We finally got back to the car and took stock of our day. All in all we were at the park for 8 1/2 hours. In that time we rode 7 rides and stood in lines for 6 hours! Is it any wonder that today, when we woke up and asked the kids if they wanted to head back to Silver Dollar City to use our 2nd day pass, that they unanimously said "No way!" and had no problem with packing up and heading home a day early?!

To be fair, we did talk to other guests during our wait times, and most said that it wasn't usually this busy at Silver Dollar City. One lady was flabbergasted that she had spent an hour in line for lunch at a food booth that only served hotdogs and nachos. It seems that usually the park is run much better. It appeared to be a bad case of not enough staff for a day that was busier than expected. However, considering that they opened for the season last week, one would expect them to have hired all their staff by now. It was especially disheartening to see all the "Sorry folks, no shows today!" signs at the various show locations. If the lines are this long, and the shows this non-existent early in the season, how on earth are they going to cope with larger crowds in the summer? I'm not sure if management has changed, or if the park was trying to cut costs by not hiring as many people, but there was definitely a break down somewhere in their system.

I'll be keeping an eye on the situation to see if it improves, but until I see evidence that the problems are fixed, I'd have to advise everyone to pick a different park for their vacations. It simply is not worth the time and money to go to Silver Dollar City in my opinion! My kids are eagerly awaiting the 4 day weekend in May where we will go check out Six Flags over Texas. As far as they're concerned Silver Dollar City was a big disappointment and not on their list of places to go back to!

Anyways, I am off to stock up on groceries, then I will be making some new products that I thought of while on break - love how a vacation can clear the mind and provide tons of inspiration! I will be having some flash freebies of the new things this weekend, so be sure to check back so you don't miss it (hint, I will be posting the flash freebie times on my FB page, so be sure you like it to get the updates!).

St. Patrick's Day Celebration plus a Meet-up!

2013-03-15T11:38:00.003-07:00

Wahoo for Spring Break! Today is an inclement weather day that we never had to take, so my Spring Break started a day early :) Can't beat that, can you?

I'm heading to Kansas City, KS tomorrow for the Midwest Meet-up! If you're in the area we'd love to see you there (no blog necessary!). I think we've decided on the Chili's restaurant, so come have lunch with us!

Then we're off to Bronson, MO to hit Silver Dollar City's new roller coaster - my husband and kids are thrilled! Pregnant me will have to sit that one out - and somehow manage to resist all the goodies while I'm waiting for them! We've never been to KS or MO, so if you know of any places that we just shouldn't miss out on, please Rustle Up a Response below and let me know! I am about to hit up the Food Network website to see if "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" covered any good places to eat in those locations lol!

Before I get all wrapped up in packing and cleaning house, I wanted to share our St. Patrick's Day celebration with you! Our classroom was all decked out for the occasion:

This leprechaun on our door was a big hit with the kids!

I love making our reading center cozy with a themed table cloth (nothing fancy, just a yard of fabric) and some seasonal books.

I found this cute rug for our door at the Target Dollar Spot - the kids loved it, even though it didn't have all the colors.

Our Math wall had my Leprechaun Ten Frames on display - the kids love it when I put a new set up!

Each kiddo who made a leprechaun trap got one of these BragTags for their necklace:

Here's a collage of the various traps - I was very impressed with how elaborate they were - and my one little buddy who comes in a bit dirty, without homework and never seems to get a whole lot of interaction at home came in with one of the neatest traps - and proceeded to excitedly tell me about how he and his dad constructed it together! It really made my day to know that this little assignment provided such special time for him to be with his father one-on-one like that!

The insides of the trap were also entertaining, especially the one with this picture inside:

How's that for leprechaun enticement?!

In the afternoon we set up all of the traps around the room:

Once everything was set up we headed for the computer room, and when we came back that leprechaun has upset all the traps, scattered shamrock confetti everywhere, and knocked over all of the green chairs in our classroom! I would have taken a picture, but I had to ride herd on the kids, who were so excited that they alerted the 2nd grade class across the hall who came rushing over to see if we had actually caught a leprechaun!

Once everyone settled down we discovered that the tricky leprechaun had gotten to our snacks! We were going to have a special treat since we finally got everyone over the first hump of sight words:

The leprechaun opened all the treats and turned them green!

We also made leprechaun necklaces (bought at 1/2 price after St. Patrick's day last year so they were $4 for the materials to make 30!)

Of course we had to tie in some writing as well, look at what my friends would do if they actually caught a leprechaun! Note, remember I'm in 1st grade this year, so this is way more than I would expect from a kinder. Also, this was a 20 minute activity - no rough draft and only minimal editing, just writing off the cuff.

This little one has so many ideas she forgot to make each a complete sentence, but I loved her enthusiasm!

Hmm, this one seemed to over rely on "I would" but, all in all I was pretty impressed that she was able to get this much down - and she remembered punctuation most of the time!

I see I need to do a quick lesson on "in" versus "and" as well as "git" versus "get". This one is very hard for me since I don't have the Oklahoma accent that my kiddos do. To me, the difference seems perfectly obvious, but most of my students have difficulties with their accent affecting their spelling.

Another little one who needs a refresher on not starting sentences with "and" lol! But, I love the part about living "Happily ever after"!

Hope you enjoyed this look into our St. Patrick's Day classroom celebration!

Leprechaun Jokes and Sale Ending!

2013-03-12T19:20:00.001-07:00

Here are a few leprechaun jokes I've found that might give you some laughs this week:

Also, just a quick reminder that the Kinderland TPT sale ends tonight! My entire store is 20% off until midnight, plus many of my Kinderland friends are also having sales that end tonight!

Here's my store link:

Kinderland TPT Sale!!

2013-03-10T12:53:00.001-07:00

I'm having a sale on my entire TPT store this weekend - 20% off! I have a ton of St. Patrick's Day goodies, so you can stock up for this week and next :) Some other fabulous Kinderland bloggers are having sales too, be sure to check them out!

Here's my store link:

Product Swap and a Sale!

2013-03-09T09:21:00.001-08:00

Happy Saturday! This has been a week people! Two of my kids came down with fevers, coughs, headaches! My youngest was at the dr on Monday and got a course of steroids for his deep cough, then we had to take him to the ER last night for an ear infection! I am really hoping these kids get well before Spring Break!

Happily, I participated in a product swap with Erica from Sprinkles to Kindergarten (super cute blog, you should go visit right away!). This meant we had something new to try out in my room, and when I had to take the day off on Friday for sick kids, I knew I was leaving my sub with something fun and worthwhile to do!

I started off the week by introducing her Little Detectives Making Words pack - this set has 10 lessons, so I started off with doing one whole group, under my Elmo. My kids got the hang of it very quickly and were soon begging to do another one.

This time, I let them work on it individually, and challenged them to come up with more words than their friends. I loved how engrossed they were with this, every single one of my darlings tried very hard to come up with words - and it was great because while my sweet n lows were working out word families and onset/rime to come up with 3 and 4 letter words, by high flyers were really stretching themselves to find longer words. One of my smarties even grabbed a dictionary to help her spell words!

The other product we tested was Erica's Mini Words pack which focuses on basic sight words and short vowel cvc words. I used this with my lowest group, as a review.They loved getting to use the magnifying glasses, and I loved that each sheet has enough words that I could put them in pairs!

Both of these products provide several hours of activity, so they are a bargain! Actually they're even more of a bargain now, because we are joining up with several other Kinderland bloggers for a SALE!

The sale starts Sunday, March 10th and goes until Tuesday March 12th!

Here's the link to my TPT store:

And here is Erica's

Happy Shopping!

Some Random Tidbits

2013-03-04T16:23:00.000-08:00

I took the day off today to go in for my 3 hour glucose test to see if I have gestational diabetes again. Please cross your fingers for me that the results are negative! I've had it with 2 out of my 4 pregnancies and am really hoping to skip it this time around!

Since I had some free time, I got to work grading and diaggregating the data for our 3rd quarter Title I math benchmark. Overall I was pretty pleased with the results, but I was really tickled by some of the little things I noticed while grading:

This little sweetie was being tested on such basic addition as "6+4=10" and yet look what she wrote (and then tried to erase!) in the margins:

I had to giggle when I saw this one!

(And please, pay no attention to the fact that the piece of toast is not square and a soccer ball is actually a sphere. Apparently the people who make these tests in our district failed basic 2d shapes! I had to explain to my students to pick the one that "looks most like" each shape lol!)

One of our resource teachers showed me this measurement idea she learned at a workshop:

You take the one inch plastic squares that we all seem to have floating around our cupboards for some reason (really, where do these random thingys come from?! What was their original purpose?!) and arrange them in a row and press masking tape on the back. They are then stiff enough to be used as a ruler and sturdy enough to last several uses without having to exchange the tape! I thought this was a neat idea for kiddos who aren't quite ready for real ruler - and since you can tape as many together as you want you could make short ones and have them combine rulers, or make one very long one etc! Of course you don't need to make them patterned - my little guy just happens to love patterns so he made his that way :)

Final thought for today: we are turning into Sight Word Superstars! Part of it is that my students love to partner up to work on the words. This is a bonus for me, because they can't work on words unless they are finished their regular work and have "free time". Then, they either read a book, or get to help a friend with their sight words! Talk about motivation for getting down to business! The various pointers have been getting a workout and even my lowest friends are starting to catch on since their friends are so encouraging! My little ELL guy has mastered 60 sight words now - which is amazing considering he couldn't say his letter sounds when I got him in October!

Have a great night! I will be back later this week with some St. Patrick's Day fun since we are starting our big green unit tomorrow!

St. Patrick's Day Fun!

2013-03-03T18:40:00.001-08:00

Hello! I am so excited that its March! Finally! This is my favorite month to teach - my kiddos are at that point where everyone is growing by leaps and bounds both academically as well as socially and physically. Lots of high-water pants at this time of year lol! Those light bulbs are turning on daily, and its so heartwarming to hear one of my little ones say "Hey, I get it!"

Of course, it doesn't hurt that we have Spring Break in the middle of the month - let's face it, February may be the shortest month, but it feels like the longest month when you're a teacher, simply because there are no breaks! Since all the blizzards have decided to skip by us (literally, we missed the last one by 6 miles) we haven't had a break since MLK's birthday. That's a long time, especially since we've had a lot of inside recesses due to rain and low temperatures! I am ready for Spring Break!

But, first, I get to teach my favorite unit - St. Patrick's Day! I am about 1/4 Irish, and there might be a few kiddos who have a teeny tiny bit of Irish in them, but for most of my kiddos St. Patrick's Day is a nonevent in their households. This makes it so much fun to teach in the classroom! I keep it non-secular of course, but what child isn't intrigued by the idea of little men and pots of gold?

If you check out my book list on the right sidebar you'll see some of my favorite St. Paddy's Day books to read aloud. You can also get some ideas on how to host a leprechaun in your classroom from my free "How to Plan a Leprechaun Visit" pack on TPT.

Here's a peek at my St. Patrick's Day tub:

This contains everything for my St. Patrick's Day unit except for my books which I store in different tubs. In it is everything from tablecloths for the little table at our reading center, to decorations, pencils, stickers and my files. I grabbed the little pot of gold coins and green necklaces at the after-St. Patrick's Day-sales last year, so I would have it ready for this year and not have to pay full price! I also have my leprechaun trap ready to go (read more about the traps here). I also have some BragTags from imagestuff.com to give to those who complete a leprecaun trap as a homework project:

I've made some new products for St. Patrick's Day this year, which I am super excited to use in the classroom:

Here's my St. Patrick's Day ten frames from my February/March Ten Frames pack. I just love having ten frames to display on my Math wall, as well as the smaller ones to go in our math tubs. I also made a new Lucky Measuring Fun pack for more measurement practice for my kiddos - it covers measuring height and width, as well as time to the hour and 1/2 hour, graduated order and data analysis.

Here's my Leprechaun Sight Words Game which can be played 3 ways. My students especially love the Hide-N-Seek version! This time I will hide the little pots of gold behind different cards and the students will have to read the word on the card in order to see if the pot of gold is hidden behind it. The words I used are from the Dolch Word Lists and each card has a number on it, telling you which list it is off of. This way, when my kids play in small groups, I can choose the right list for each group, making differentiation easy!

I'm just finished printing out and laminating my "I have...Who has?" game for ai/ay words for this week since it goes perfectly with the story we are on in our Scott Foresman readers. We'll also use my "I have...Who has..?" game with CVCE words just for some review.

Whew! That's a lot isn't it?! Of course we also have my St. Patrick's Roll & Cover addition/subtraction games, as well as a St. Patrick's Day Roll & Graph to make sure we get that St. Paddy's Day theme into every part of our day lol!

Oh! and I found the cutest Jungle Animal cookies from Mother's that are white and green. I plan on buying a bag of the regular pink & white Circus Animal cookies and having that tricky leprechaun switch them out with the green ones lol! Make sure to look for a package next time you are grocery shopping!

Hope that gives you some ideas for St. Patrick's Day. Head over to Sharing Kindergarten for even more St. Patrick's Day goodness!

Booking Across America

2013-02-25T18:00:00.000-08:00

Hello! I am participating in Booking Across America:

It's a collaborative blogging project organized by Jodie over at Growing Book By Book:

Educational blogging representatives of the 50 states have come together to each showcase a picture book that represents their state. I am the Oklahoma representative!

When I was trying to think of a book that would represent Oklahoma, I immediately thought of Tammi Sauer. I met her in person last year when she did a Writer's Workshop for 1st-2nd graders in my district. Her presentation was funny and she related so well with the kids that I knew I had to check out her books! She lives in Edmond, OK and frequently does author visits around the state.

For this project, I am concentrating on Chicken Dance and Bawk & Roll since they are barnyard stories and Oklahoma has such a large agriculture base.

In the first book, Chicken Dance, Marge and Lola are chickens on a mission to win tickets to see their favorite performer, Elvis Poultry. Chicken Dance deservedly won the 2010 Oklahoma Book Award in the Children's category, and you'll see why as soon as you pick it up. The illustrations are great and go so well with the text, which is sprinkled with puns and references that make it as enjoyable for adults to read as it is for the children.

The second book, Bawk & Roll, continues the story of Marge and Lola, who are now back-up dancers for Elvis Poultry. Unfortunately, they faint every time they get on stage! Your children will be sure to laugh out loud when they see the ideas the chickens come up with to conquer their stage fright! There are plenty of teachable moments, especially all of the ways the chickens try to calm their nerves. I also loved that the books had fairly simplistic language - lots of opportunities to practice sight words!

I put together a small packet with pun activities, words with the /oo/ sound and a basic comprehension pack with a Venn Diagram and Story Elements chart to go with these books, which you can access here and here:

Head over to check out the blog representing your state at the Booking Across America homepage!

A Conference and a Sale!

2013-02-03T11:59:00.000-08:00

I'm so excited!! I am heading out this afternoon to go to the Kindergarten Conference in Norman, OK! I've wanted to go for the last 3 years, but my school has $0 for professional development, so they could never afford to send me :(

This year though, I paid for it myself, using the money from my TPT sales! I am so proud of myself for my little store that has enabled me to go on this conference and hopefully bring back a ton of new ideas to my classroom! I have been anticipating this trip for weeks, and I know it will be renew my energy and allow me to be pumped up with even more enthusiasm for teaching! I get back Tuesday night, so look for a post about the conference on Wednesday!

Speaking of TPT, did you know there's a big sale going on today only? Many of my Kinderland friends are having a 20% sale, plus if you use the coupon code "SUPER" you'll get an additional 10% off the sale price!

Math Stations in Pictures

2013-01-27T10:57:00.004-08:00

We had inside recess on Friday and my kiddos begged to spend that time doing math stations, so we had about 2 hours total of math station time (before and after lunch)! They had a ton of fun and I was able to get some good pictures, so I'm sharing them with you today.

One of our favorite math stations is our Roll & Graph games:
My groups are usually about 4 kiddos a piece, and on games like this they work in pairs. They take turns rolling the dice and graphing which image comes up each time and then work on the recording sheets together, checking their partner's work. I laminate my pages and they just use dry erase markers, so it is a paper saver!

Our Roll & Cover games are also a staple:
These two boys are playing the addition version, I try to keep students of the same skill level together so they can challenge each other.

These guys are getting subtraction practice:

We've been using my Snow Much Measuring Fun Unit a lot lately too:
This group is using both sets of time cards - time to the hour and half hour. First they sort them, then match them digital to analog in a pocket chart. The matching recording sheet is good practice as they have to draw in the hands on the analog clocks!

Also in the measuring pack are two activities for measuring with nonstandard units:

Two kiddos work on measuring the width of the ice floes,

while the other two measure the height of the snowmen. Once they have finished the recording sheet they get to switch places and do the other activity.

We did our graduated order activity as a whole group refresher, as few of my kiddos needed independent practice with this skill:

We've also been using the ten frame cards from my Winter Ten Frames pack. I have my kiddos work as a team to match them up and then arrange them in numerical order in our big pocket chart:

Love how proud this group was when they finished!

I am wrapping up our Winter unit and getting ready for February! I created a new set of February/March Ten Frame cards that have images for Presidents Day, Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day:

I also made another Measurement unit, this one with Valentine graphics, so we can continue to practice those skills:

I would love to send this new measurement pack to a lucky winner! Just rustle up a response below, telling me your favorite math station activity and I'll choose a random comment tonight at 11pm! Make sure to include your email address so I can send the pack over right away!

UPDATE: Did the random number thingy and the winner is Andrea (aka MrsS). Thanks so much for all of your comments! Andrea, check your mail :)

Martin Luther King Jr Lesson!

2013-01-22T18:05:00.003-08:00

I realized today that I forgot to share about my MLK Jr lesson on Friday! I even took pictures, and then forgot all about it - well I remembered today, so, better late then never, right?

I start with 3 different colors of paper and matching crayons for those colors. I did red, white and black:

Bring everyone to carpet and hand each child a paper and make sure they get the matching color crayon. At this point some of my smarties begin to mutter about white not showing up on white paper etc. Ignore the mutters and settle in to read one of the best books ever:

"Martin's Big Words"

Seriously love this book! The pictures are so beautiful, and the story is told simply yet poignantly.

Instruct the children that they have to draw a beautiful picture while you read aloud. Start reading and see what happens. In past years I haven't gotten even a page into the book before the muttering revs up, finally culminating in one brave soul who will cry out "Mrs. Knopf I can't use the white crayon on white paper!" or red crayon on red paper etc.

This year however, my kiddos were all working very hard to try to get those darn crayons to show up, so I had to intervene and ask one of them point blank "Jimmy Bob, why aren't you drawing, I told you to draw me a beautiful picture!" At this point he earnestly explained that he was trying, it was just hard to see.

Most years, the kids come up with the solution to switch crayons on their own. This year's class needed a little help to come to that conclusion, but finally suggested it. I acted aghast that they would want to mix their crayon and paper colors - "You mean you're going to use the white crayon on red paper?!" and they assured me that it was, in fact, a good idea. I allowed the switch of crayons, furrowing my brow in worry until a few of them demonstrated that it was working and they would draw me a great picture.

The kids keep drawing as I read, eventually getting so pulled into the book that their crayons drop by the wayside and they sit, struggling to comprehend - "You mean she couldn't sit anywhere she wanted on the bus?" "Why were people like that?" and finally "He died?!"

The discussion that takes place afterward is priceless. We talk about all the things we'd miss out on if it hadn't been for MLK Jr. Students who wouldn't be best friends, or even classmates any more, having to use a different restroom or water fountain etc. It truly is one of the best group discussions we have all year.

This year, rather than continue on with another book (I usually do "The Crayon Box That Talked" and have everyone decorate a crayon template) I chose to make a great craftivity from Susan Moran's MLK Jr unit. I really wanted to get the kids writing about their dreams. I stressed that this was supposed to be a serious dream - not one about having a bath with a purple and pink poodle! I think they turned out awesome, so I'm sharing a few of them with you tonight:

I can totally see this little girl growing up to be a firefighter - she is very determined!

First off, love that she used a contraction correctly, secondly, I never knew she aspired to be an artist! I will have to provide more free art time!

This little guy is one of my strugglers - I was so proud of him for getting 3 complete sentences down!

I am first in line for a $1 house!

He sounded out "hippopotamuses" by himself!

This little girl is always belting out the tunes when we sing - I love that music brings her such joy!

This little guy wants to be a nurse, but he'll make sure to wait for the doctor when he helps people. I just loved it!

That's it, just a little peek :) I am so lucky to be a teacher!

Valentine's Day on the Brain

2013-01-21T12:48:00.001-08:00

Whew! I am exhausted, and I haven't even started my lesson plans yet! I just finished up my February/March Ten Frames pack! I am super excited about this one because it has such cute graphics to go along with Valentine's Day, President's Day and St. Patrick's Day! I know my kiddos will love them!

Seriously cute graphics, right?!

If you're a FB fan, I just posted about these and am giving a set away FREE to a random commenter on my FB page, so hurry over to enter as I'll choose a winner before bedtime tonight - bedtime being whenever I finally get lesson plans done lol:)

I also picked up a couple of new Valentine's Day books this weekend. I was at my local Hastings, which is the only book store within 50 miles of our little town, and they actually had a cute display where I found these two:

Both of them are adorable and the Night Before Valentine's Day one even gave me some cute ideas for our own Valentine's Day celebration! I usually shop on Amazon.com because of our lack of book stores, so I was pleasantly surprised to be able to pick these up :)

I am working on a measurement pack for Valentine's Day as well. Here's a question - do you have a party for Valentine's Day? Do you make or give cards? I posted yesterday about the gumballs I found for my kiddos, and someone commented that they weren't allowed to give food to their kiddos, which had me wondering what everyone else's rules about V-Day parties are. Rustle up a response below and let me know how you celebrate Valentine's Day in the classroom!

Cute Valentine Idea!

2013-01-20T12:06:00.001-08:00

I found the cutest Valentine gift for my kiddos! How adorable are these?!

I found them at my local Sam's Club. They come 24 to a pack which meant I had to buy 2 packs to make sure I had enough for my class of 27! Luckily I talked my teaching buddy into buying them too so we are splitting the extra pack. They were only $9.99 so they were a lot more economical than some of the things I have bought in the past, and I know my kiddos will love them.

I also love the test tubes - since we are having our Science Fair January 31st, I thought the test tubes would be a good reminder of all the science experiments we will see/do. And no, I haven't even a clue about what we're going to do for our class science experiment. We were only given a two week notice about the fair since its run by the intermediate classes. I wish we had more time to do a really prolonged, investigative experiment, but we will have to settle for something that won't take too long to set up and complete so we have time to write it up and make our display board.

Does your class have to have a Science Fair project? Have any great ideas for me? I'd love it if you'd rustle up a comment below for me!

If you don't have a Sam's Club nearby or your store doesn't have the gumball test tubes you can always just make baggies of gumballs like this:

Source: livingwiththreemoonbabies.blogspot.com via Jennifer on Pinterest

Click on the link to go to this fun blog to get the free printable!

Marshmallow Bites Freebie and Misc!

2013-01-16T19:05:00.001-08:00

Many thanks for all of the kind words, and yes, you were correct, I am expecting baby #5! I am only partially outed at work, so you are even ahead of some of my coworkers! I did have to tell my cafeteria manager when she did a double take after seeing my tray today - before Christmas my lunch was usually a salad, bottle of water and maybe a few pieces of broccoli or carrots. Today I was starving so I got the sweet & sour chicken with brown rice, the macaroni and cheese and the pasta salad, along with cut up bell pepper strips and carrot sticks and a carton of milk. I didn't end up eating it all in our allotted 15 minutes, but I made a healthy dent in it lol! I have found that with this pregnancy I only get nauseous when my stomach is empty, so I am going to have to figure out some snack ideas that will be easy to eat and not too obvious so I can snack during the day without my poor kiddos feeling deprived!

Anyways, I promised I'd award some commenters with their choice of item from my store, so I picked 3 random winners and they are:

Thank you so much ladies! I will be contacting you shortly to see which goody you'd like!

We are on day 3 of inside recess. I think I can safely say that I am a wee bit cranky at this point and my students are a wee bit crazy. I am praying for snow or warmer weather. At this point I don't care which - this in-between stuff is killing me - either it has to be warm enough to go outside or too snowy to come to school! However, we did have a ton of fun during recess today:

Puppet Center is always the first to fill up - love how these kiddos are using both sides of the stage to interact!

To entice a few kiddos to drawing center I got out the markers and the colored pencils - gasp!

My block center kiddos made a helicopter pad - love how they put the helicopter on top of the H block!

The Marble Run is actually my very favorite - I could play with these things for hours and so can my students! They are getting to be good little architects!

I am sad to say that our copy machine is down due to lack of toner. Apparently we are shipping in replacement toner from Timbuktu and it won't be here until next week sometime. I was sincerely relieved that we had library and computers today, at least a little bit of time was eaten up that way! I am not sad that I don't have worksheets, as we don't usually use them much anyways, but I can't even send home a sight word list or print any recording sheets for units! Today during library time our librarian read Snowmen at Night and I can't even use the super cute Snowman at Night Craftivity/Writing activity I found that goes with it!

Yep, the January blahs are in full force, I think it's time to cut this pity party short! In order to cheer myself up tonight I created a fun little graphing freebie that goes along with some cute marshmallows I found at the grocery store! They come in banana, strawberry, orange and raspberry shapes, and as soon as I saw them I knew they'd be a perfect Friday treat! Hopefully you can find them at a grocery store near you and use this freebie too!Just click the picute to download it in Google Docs!

12 on the 12th Linky...Kind of...

2013-01-13T15:31:00.002-08:00

I am linking up with Stacy from Simpson's Superstars for her 12 on the 12th linky party! Except, it isn't the 12th any more, and I don't have 12 pictures, but, you get the idea!

So here are my totally random pictures from a shopping trip yesterday (hey, at least I took the pictures on the 12th lol!)

Hmmm, I guess they're not so totally random after all. If you get it, leave a comment and I'll pick some random winners to win their choice of item from my TPT store :)

Fun Behavior Management Tool!

2013-01-07T17:07:00.000-08:00

We started back to school today after our 2 week break. I was a little leery that my kiddos would forget our procedures and we'd have a rough day, but it was actually one of our best days! We had a great time, although I did have a couple who begged for a nap by mid afternoon - one little guy even gave up his recess to sit inside and lay his head down! I am hoping as the week progresses they get used to being back on school schedule.

One of the things that helped was a new whole class behavior management tool. I got this from the Target Dollar Spot (where else?!) and actually had no idea what I was going to do with it, but I couldn't pass it up for just a $1 lol!

Isn't he cute? He's a little more than a foot tall, so he's easily visible across the classroom. There are two pages of stickers with him, so we will have fun customizing him!

The deal is, we have our snowman hanging up for the whole month of January. Whenever I catch the whole class doing the right thing, ie working quietly, walking in line procedure etc, then I choose someone to add a piece to the snowman. Today we got the sunglasses, he's apparently a very cool snowman!

If we get our snowman completed by the end of the month than we get a special prize like popcorn, or extra recess etc. It just so happens that our 100th day of school falls on Feb 1st, so chances are I can combine the two occasions via bringing in a 100th Day of school snack or incorporating 100% longer recess lol! I like this because its incentive for everyone to be good at the same time. Many of my students are good most of the time, but honestly, I would just love for everyone to do the right thing at the same time once in a while - particularly when someone comes into the room to speak with me (ie tutor, parent, principal, spec ed teacher etc). Right now I have a small group that feels that whenever we have an interruption that's the signal to crawl around, wrestle, talk and basically completely ignore procedures. They all came from a class where that was the norm last year, and so far I can't break that habit yet! But, they really seemed eager to get that snowman dressed today, so I am crossing my fingers!

I am also hoping that Target will have other sticker sets so I can continue this idea each month. I know they had a big gingerbread man one which would have been great for December. If you happen to be in Target, make sure you check the Dollar Spot for me! I am thinking a leprechaun for March, but no idea what would be good for February? Ideas?