100th Day Recap

Today is snow day #12 fir this school year. We did finally make it to the 100th day on Tuesday. I really wasn't as prepared as I like to be. Mainly because I wasn't convinced we were going to go to school on Tuesday and we've been out so much. But we had a good day. We spent the afternoon celebrating with a rotation of 4 activities.

1. Building something with 100 cups.

Once they realized they needed to work together they did a great job!

2. Making a design out of 100 pattern blocks.

3. Race to 100 

4. A hat - they used 10 strips of construction paper and bingo daubers to make 100 dots for the hats. I saw this on Pinterest.

I had wanted to make a necklace out of fruit loops but it didn't happen. A rotation of activities is my favorite way I've done the 100th day. It was easy to manage and they all got to do activities. I'll have my kids again for first grade so I'm already thinking about what I want to do then.

I'm thinking we won't go back to school this week. We have about 6 inches of snow. I was really not wanting anymore snow but I'm not feeling well so it is nice to have these days to rest up. 

Do you have snow where you live? 

Christmas Cheer!

I'm a little late in posting all our Christmas fun but I took a bunch of pictures that I wanted to share.

This is our elf, Arthur! The kids and I had so much fun with him. I think he's cuter than the Elf on the Shelf but I might be biased!

This was my favorite antic he pulled. He brought us Wrapped Christmas books one day and our leader each day unwrapped one. We read Aliens Love Panta Claus and then the next day Arthur decorated the tree in underpants.

This was Chris and I's third Christmas together. I had a prelit tree I put up before we got together. Now we go get a real one and decorate it together!

Here are some of the centers we did the last few weeks of school. Some had a Gingerbread theme!

I love my sensory bin this month. It was all holiday and Christmassy!

For math we read a poem 5 little Ornaments! Then they wrote their own subtraction problem.

More of Arthur's antics. The Gingerbread man showed up and stole our cookies. We had to go search for them.

This is my sweet niece elfed! She came and stayed with Chris and I one night which was a lot of fun. I took this picture and then elfed it. I. I took my iPad to school and let all the kids elf a picture of themselves. We then made Christmas cards for their families!

Arthur wrapped our door for his last hurrah!

I made these goodies for our class party. It was the calmest party ever. My sister brought my niece and it was a lot of fun.

We had our first annual tacky sweater contest. I should have won but I wasn't in it since I organized and got the prizes.

These are all the presents under our tree! I enjoyed all the wrapping and buying this year.

We got my dad a skateboard and my niece got a tricycle. They were funny trying them out on Christmas Eve!

Here is my fruit tray I made for Chris's grandmother's house. I think this is my new job. I made a turkey at Thanksgiving so I was asked to make another.

My hubby bought me this beautiful buttery leather for Christmas! I've been wanting my very own Micheal Kors purse! I love love love it!

This was the pic we used for our Christmas card! I hope you and yours had a very  merry Christmas! I am blessed beyond my wildest dreams!

You might remember me posting about a student at my school who was diagnosed with brain cancer almost a year ago. His dad teaches with me. We'll he passes away early Christmas morning. My heart is so heavy for the family even though I know Regan is with Jesus and suffering no more. Please say a prayer for this family!

Turkey Time! and a freebie

I haven't blogged in way too long! I hate it. I miss chatting with my bloggy friends. Life has just been too busy lately and I haven't had the energy to blog much. But I'm hoping to catch up over my Thanksgiving break. I'm so jealous of all you that have the whole week off. But I'm thankful for my 2 and a half days off I have. I was talking to one bloggy friend who only gets Thursday off. I am in need of this break badly. Anyway, this is just a quick post to share a freebie for those of you that are in school this week too. It's a color by sight word page that reviews some sight words from journeys. We just finished lesson 11.

You can click here to get the freebie on google docs. 

I also have a freebie in my tpt store that is a fun counting activity with a Thanksgiving theme. Check it out here. 
Even though it would be nice to have the whole week off I'm going to enjoy the days I've got with my kids. I sent home the Disguise a Turkey project a few weeks ago and it's suppose to come back tomorrow. I've gotten a few in and can't wait to see them all. So far they are looking good. Wednesday for our half day we're going to have a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving Feast with our Fourth grade buddies. We'll watch the dvd and then compare it to a book. Then feast on popcorn, jelly beans and pretzels. It should be a good day. Hopefully over the break, I'll have the chance to share what we've been doing with our buddies. We've had a blast with them lately and learned a lot. So how long do you get for a break? If you are going to be in school this week, what do you have planned?

Easter Egg Freebies

I had my currently scheduled to post today but I finished up some Easter egg activities and thought I'd share them before it got too late. I have seen tons of great ideas of how to use the plastic eggs so I was inspired to make some ways myself.
Here's how I'm using them:
I put sentences I found on someone's blog (I don't remember who and I feel really bad about that.) in one set o eggs. Tomorrow they are going to pass the Easter bucket around and then draw out an egg.
I made sight word strips and then  cut them apart. I put the pieces in a set of eggs. They are going to draw out eggs and then put the word together. They are going to use the sight word they got in a sentence in their journal. And then swap with a neighbor.
I also made some addition and subtraction sentences 0-5 to work on. I think I'm going to make that a math center later this week. They can use jellybeans and ten frames to solve the problems.
We're also working on even and odd numbers. So I'm going to put an even or odd number of jellybeans in the eggs and they kids have to use a ten frame to tell if they are even or odd. They will swap. I'm going to number the eggs and they will record it on a sheet.
So I have a few freebies to share with you.

Math Practice for Easter Eggs

I'm also sharing a recording sheet for the jellybean activity. Hopefully you can use some of these before Easter. The frame in the document came from The 3 AM teacher. If you haven't checked her clipart out, you need to. She's awesome.
Even and Odd Jellybeans

If you download any of these activities, please leave me some comment love. I'm always looking for some feedback on the things I create.
Been meaning to blog about the fact that I've won two giveaways lately. I won second prize in Ms. Patterson's giveaway. I got some good loot. Including some new graphics from the 3 AM teacher that I have a ton of ideas for using. I also won a giveaway of some books from the Waddlee-ah-chee blog. So exciting. I only have 3 and a half more days of school before spring break. Woo Hoo!

What a seusstastic week!

Oh my gosh. We had so much fun this week with Dr. Seuss. It was a busy week though and I didn't have time to post all week when I had tons to share. I've got to start scheduling some posts on the weekend. Here's what we did this week: Monday we read The Cat in the Hat and made our own Things. I was inspired by a pin I had pinned and could never find the original source. I like to do art projects with writing usually but this one was just an art project. I know there is a lot of debate about doing art for the sake of art. But I think it ties into listening and following directions. I gave my students the colors of construction paper they needed and then they had to follow my directions to cut it correctly. They all turned out differently. I forgot to take a picture of all of them completed, but here's a picture of my example. 
Tuesday we read Green Eggs and Ham. We played a fun rhyming game that I got from Preschool Printables. We also completed the freebie that Jennifer from Blue Skies in First Grade posted from her labeling packet.
Wednesday we read Horton Hears a Who and completed text to self connections about how we were good friends. We started the book If I Ran the Zoo on Wednesday and then finished it on Thursday. It was not a book I planned to read but we needed a time filler. On Thursday we finished the book and then they drew their own animals for the zoo. They did a good job with being creative and coming up with different animals than your usual zoo animals.
Friday was The Lorax day. We read the Lorax and then made our own mustaches. I have pictures but my computer is not cooperating with me and let me upload the pictures from my camera. I loved the mustaches that I had seen on Pinterest and other blogs. I had them write a sentence about what they could do to help the environment. They loved the mustaches. Then they made Lorax backgrounds and added truffula trees with straws and Easter grass. They turned out really cute. I had planned on making those blue jello with the red gummy fish I had seen on pinterest for the kids as a snack. But I couldn't find any gummy fish. So I made strawberry jello and bought some cool whip. We had cat in the hat parfaits. They were yummy but I didn't get a picture of them.

One of the other teacher's mom came dressed as the Cat in the Hat and read to the kids. And then the afternoon got crazy. We were sent back to our classrooms to practice tornado drills and were not allowed to leave the room. Luckily the storms blew over us without a lot happening. Other than some terrified kindergartners because they kept hearing the word tornado over and over. They were so hyped up on thinking something bad was going to happen that one of my students when it was time to go home asked me "Is there really a missile coming to the school?" I had no idea what he was talking about. He then said she said that on the intercom. Turns out he heard the assistant principal say the word mission and thought she said missile. It was a little crazy.
I have received two awards this week and I hope to post about them tomorrow. Meanwhile, I have a few freebies for you. I love doing literacy bags with my kids. The next few weeks we're going to be doing a Dr. Seuss literacy bag. Here's the information I'm sending with the bag. Even if you don't use the bag idea, you can use the sheet to have your students write about their favorite Dr. Seuss book. The graphics are from the 3 AM teacher. I'm also giving you my homework from last week as a freebie. The graphics are from 3 AM teacher and scrappin doodles. I used part of One Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, Two Fish as their reading homework.   If you download these let me know and leave me a comment on how you spent your week. I think we're going to continue a few more Dr. Seuss activities next week in  centers and our homework.
Dr. Seuss Literacy Bag
One Fish, Red Fish Homework

Read Across America Freebies

I'm so excited about this week. I love Read Across America week. We have a dress up day associated with a Dr. Seuss book each day. Today is multicolored clothes day for the book My Many Multicolored Days; Tuesday is green day for Green Eggs and Ham; Wednesday is Who hair day for Horton Hears a Who; Thursday is crazy sock day for Fox in Socks; Friday is crazy hat day for the Cat in the Hat. On Friday, our librarian has arranged a variety of readers from the community and school system to read to our classes. My wonderful fiance Chris is going to read to the 7th and 8th graders. Last year he did The Tell Tell Heart and they loved it. This is just another one of his many talents. He's pretty good at drama type things.
I'm going to read a different Dr. Seuss book each day and do a craftivity to go with it. I haven't quite decided what I'm doing for each book. I've seen so many great ideas on other blogs and pinterest. Our weekly reading homework is even Dr. Seuss. I took an excerpt from Red Fish, Blue Fish, One Fish, Two Fish.  a

I've updated the freebie to some clipart that is acceptable with copyright issues. I hope you can use it.
Click here to get that freebie. 
I'm even wanting to do some Seuss themed snacks. I'm so excited. What do you do at your school for Read Across America? Please leave me some comment love if you download this packet. I'm hoping to do some similar games with other themes so I would love some feedback.

So Thankful for the Weekend

I am so happy to have a four day weekend in front of me. I've been exhausted for the past couple of weeks and I think I'm fighting off a cold of some sort. I'm looking forward to catching up on my blogging, watching some more of the kindergarten expo, and reading my Patricia Cornwell book today. Throw in my fiance's laundry, my laundry and fixing lunches and I feel like I'm quite the happy housewife. Saturday I'm participating in a middle school retreat that's an overnight er. So I need all the rest I can get today. Monday I'm heading to Knoxville with my mom to see my sis and sweet niece. My wedding dress is in so we might go by there Monday. Although my sleeves are not. It has barely been a month since we ordered it and I'm shocked it's already in.
We had a pretty good week at school celebrating Valentine's day and learning about weather. It's a weird combination I know. I have had 2 students move in the past week so my class size seems really small. When my 6 ELL kids leave to go to ELL class, I only have 9 students in my room and this week some of them have been absent. (Those of you that just added up that I only have 15 students, please don't hate me. I had 18 at one point. I'm apparently going to be a revolving door this year. And only 4 of those kids are girls.) On Valentine's day we decorated our bags to distribute our valentines, made a valentine for our parents, and played my puppy love cover up game. The kids seem to have a lot of fun. I didn't take any pictures of their valentines but they were nothing super special. I had bought some foam hearts and put their first day of kindergarten pictures on it. They just decorated them. I was really proud that most of my students had actually written their names and their friends' names on their valentines. That was something I asked the families to do so they could practice. I was also really proud of how well they read their friends' names. I think this year I've done more with names that I have in the past so they know each others names. Technically I'm a half day kindergarten where some of my kids leave at 12:30. That afternoon I only had 1 girl and then the rest of the kids were boys. It made me laugh a little because at one point they were all doing crafts. They had their choice between all the free centers and they chose to make stuff out of hearts. I was inspired by someone's blog who gave her students hearts to make animals out of. I found some felt hearts in my stash of stuff. They used them to make pictures. They turned out pretty well. One boy made a butterfly for me and then attached some paper from the writing center with a picture he drew of us and labeled. It was pretty cute.
I just finished watching Crystal's presentation from Kindergarten Expo on writer's workshop. I'm super inspired to go back to school and implement some of her ideas. If you haven't checked out the expo, you definitely should. I just purchased my ticket to the primary expo. I am loving this professional development on my own time in my pjs. 

I'm working on a blogging challenge for next week so be sure to check back.

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm feeling very loved today, after all the commenting love I got yesterday on my post. My favorite had to be from Ms. S who told me to stop having a pity party. I laughed out loud at that comment. It was a complete pity party and I'm glad someone called me out on it. I really was truly worried people thought they could a virus from my blog but I'm glad to find out no one is thinking that.
Because I'm in a lovey dovey mood, I'm liking up with Buzzing with Ms. B and How'd you meet your Hunny?
Chris and I actually meet when he was  sophomore and I was a senior in high school. We both swam on the swim team and he was good friends with some of my good friends. I thought he was super nice and funny guy but that was really the extent of thinking about him. He had the cutest girlfriend all through high school. They were really very cute together. I add this part in because he likes to tell people now that I wouldn't give him the time of day in high school. But we were friends. I didn't really think a ton about him after high school. I still kind of knew things about him because of mutual friends. I knew he went to Vanderbilt and I remember when his mother passed away and I found out he was a vet because my pastor took her dog to see him.  But I didn't see him or anything. (Only to figure out now we did all go to the movies once during college.) Fall of 2010, I got a message on facebook from Chris. He just said thought he had seen me driving to school one day and asked me a little about living back at home. I was seeing someone at the time so I responded but that was about it. Meanwhile, the guy I was seeing then and I broke up and it was Chris's birthday at the end of December. I sent him a birthday facebook message and about a week later we started messaging on facebook. I asked him if he wanted to go to dinner and catch up sometime. I beat him to the punch on asking me out. He suggested an Italian place and then ice skating. We've been together ever since. Which is only just over a year. I have never been one to believe in all the lovey dovey mushy stuff. In fact, I might or might not have a t-shirt that says Love is Lame. But I knew there was something special about Chris from our first day. He impressed me by praying before the meal and his involvement in church and youth. He supports everything I do and I feel so lucky to have him in my life. He's definitely my other half and it's a total God thing we got together when we did. I can't wait to get married on June 16th.
Hopefully, a romantic story was just what you were looking for on this Valentine's day. Check out other stories at Buzzing with Ms. B. If you don't have a hunny, don't give up. Chris and I didn't get together until I was 29 and I've definitely learned God's timing is perfect.

Last year Chris brought in a couple of birds from his vet office for the kids to see.

This is us camping and hiking. We love being outdoors together.

This is an owl they rescued at his clinic that he brought in for the kids to see.

Valentine's Day Units

I've been working on a couple of units for Valentine's day for forever now. I really wanted to get it done before February 1st but it just didn't happen. I have Valentine's Literacy Activities and a Puppy Love Math unit up on my Teacher's notebook store. I have a couple of freebies for you from them.

Click Here for preview activity

Click Here for a Preview Activity

 You can check them out in my Teacher's Notebook store.


I'm really torn about selling stuff on Teacher's Notebook. I just recently read a blog post about everyone selling things and no one sharing anymore.When I read this post, it made me feel bad for selling things. It made me feel like I wasn't sharing my items anymore. But that's not true. I shouldn't feel bad for trying to support myself and for being compensated for time and clip art that I've bought. After reading this post, I decided that I wouldn't follow this blogger anymore. I didn't need to feel bad for trying new things. It makes me happy to create and offer some freebies but also it is exciting when I sell stuff.  I still see lots of freebies out in the blogging world and I try to still offer freebies every week.  I totally understand people selling things. Now that I've been working on a few units of my own, I can see all the hard work that goes into it. It has taken me forever to get this Valentine's Day stuff made. I made it as a response to things I needed in my classroom. I started some tutoring last week and I plan on using these activities with my small groups. I want others to be able to use my stuff and love to share my ideas. But I also like to buy things on Teacher's Notebook and TPT myself. It's been nice to be able to use the very small amount of money that I've made to buy other materials. The most expensive things I have on my store is $3.50. I chose that because that's about what I like to spend on items. I don't really like to spend more than $5.00 on stuff but some of the packets are worth it. I am going to spend money on books and things for my classroom, I would rather spend this money supporting other teachers. What do you guys think about selling stuff versus offering freebies?
 I would love to hear what you have to say about this. Also, if you grab one of my freebies please leave me some love. I need all the encouragement I can get in this venture.

This week in Ms. Kerri's Room

I'm having a much better week this week. I think an attitude adjustment on my part has helped. Last week I was so cranky and the kids were awful. This week (I know it's only been 2 days) has been a lot better. I think it helps that we're doing a review week in reading. We started our Gingerbread Unit this week. This is the first time I'm doing this unit with my kindergartners. I only had the standard gingerbread books, then Stinky Cheese Man and the Runaway Tortilla. But last week I placed a Scholastic order and added to my collection. These are the books we're reading this week: The Gingerbread Man (Jan Brett), The Gingerbread Boy, The Gingerbread Baby, The Stinky Cheese Man, The Runaway Tortilla, The Gingerbread Girl, and The Gingerbread Pirates. We have to go to school 3 days next week so we're going to continue reading them. My kids have been so excited about it. When I told them Monday what books we were reading, one of my more enthusiastic students exclaimed, "Oh Man! This is going to be Awesome!" We're then making a chart to compare the stories. Currently the chart is just a table on my promethean board. But after seeing some really cool anchor charts out there, I might have to spruce mine up a bit.  Friday the kids are going to decorate a real cookie and we're making a bean gingerbread man. I took the foam gingerbread men from the dollar section at target and a bunch of beans I've had for a variety of things and turned into this week's art center. Here's my example:
Elf on a shelf update. Monday Rainbow returned from the North Pole. The kids were worried he wasn't going to come back after they had a rough day on Friday. I had my best inspiration for a place for him yesterday. He was ziplining on a ribbon from the light to the flag pole. The kids went crazy over it when they came in. But during center time he fell. It was awful. The kids were freaking out hoping he was ok. Luckily while they were taking a bathroom break he climbed back up on the flag pole. It was a close one. Tomorrow, my boyfriend thinks Rainbow should be camping in a tent. We will see. He wants to set up his big tent. I think maybe we should just make a small tent for him. We've been writing in our Elf journals everyday and it's a great opportunity to work on some writing skills. I'm trying to train them to be more independent writers and sound words out. It's working out ok. But I can see I need to work more on some writing instruction after Christmas. Does anyone else have a list of things to implement after the break? (I'm thinking that's a whole post in itself.)
Anyway, I leave you with a picture of our Elf Rainbow. How's your week going? We have five more days of school before the holidays and I can't wait.