Make it Monday

Yay! My first official day of spring break. It's been busy so far. I had a dentist appointment today and then had lunch with Chris. Then I had to run a couple of errands to get my hostess gifts together for my shower tonight. I have my first wedding shower tonight. My future sister in law and grandmother in law (I'm not sure that's a word) are throwing it for me. So my make it Monday post is going to be about my hostess gifts I got/made for them. I went to the Dollar Tree in search of vases to make the candy filled ones I've seen on pinterest. But no luck finding the right sizes. I did find a lot of bright colored containers that my brain is already working overtime to figure out how to use them. I got one for my gift for the SIL. I'm getting her some Bath and Body Work stuff but I wanted a cute container to put them in. Then I got a vase and some stones to put in the flowers. So here they are all jazzed up a bit.

Now I'm ready for my shower tonight. The wedding excitement begins. I've been tagged by Heather at Mrs. Shelton's Kindergarten. I'll be back tomorrow with that post. Last time I didn't play by the rules. I think I will this time. Side note: I'm like a 11 follower away from 200. I would love to reach 200 by the end of my spring break and have a giveaway. So if you don't follow me, I'd love it if you would or send some followers my way. Thanks.

Spring Break Finally!

So as of 11:15 today I was suppose to be on Spring break. But it was more like 11:40 before all the buses (well all but one and my assistant principal sent us back inside) were gone. But thank goodness I was so ready for it. I hate half days. They seem like such a waste of a day. We started our day with a talent show. My cuties sang and performed Dr. Jean's Banana Dance. It was so cute. We were first up and they did great. We were suppose to have an egg hunt to take up a good chunk of the morning. But the weather was not cooperating. Luckily I have a great room mom and assistant who hid the eggs in the classroom. The kids did great and it wasn't too crazy. The first half day of spring break I had lunch with Chris, read some Mockingjay, and then went to supervise some scouts doing some fund raising at our local grocery store. Chris is a boy scout troop leader so I'm now a boy scout leader as well. It was a good way to start my week.
My biggest task to complete over spring break is getting some things cleaned out and organized to make room for Chris. He's slowly starting to bring his stuff over. Combing stuff is going to be interesting. I have a list of packets I want to make as well. A ten frame scoot game with some awesome clip art I won from the 3 AM teacher, a star wars packet, and something else that I've now forgotten about. I also have some exciting wedding stuff coming up. I have my first shower on Monday. It's a personal shower that Chris's sister and grandmother are having for me. Then on Tuesday we're getting our engagement pictures. I can't wait. There's also this little get together of the Tennessee Bloggers. I'm pretty excited about this too.

I'll be back with more school related posts this weekend. Here's my question for you: Have you heard of a personal shower? Have you been to one or did someone have one for you? I'm a little nervous about this.

Side note: Come check out this great new blog. She's only 6 followers away from 50. I love Mrs. Castro's great ideas for working with ELL students. So check her out and help her reach 50 or more.

Is it spring break yet?

Yesterday I was so cranky. I just wanted spring break to be here. I'm exhausted and my kids are exhausted. We haven't had a day off since February and they are tired of each other. Which is in turn making me cranky. I can not handle the fighting anymore. Monday and Tuesday were great days. But Wednesday they just couldn't hold it together. It could be because we spent about an hour and half at a play yesterday morning. It was an awesome play put on by the middle school kids at my school of Alice and Wonderland. But it was not their usual routine and they had to sit for a long time. And be quiet for a long time. So they took all this out of me and I was cranky by the end of the day. Luckily I had a date with my cutie pie niece, Sophie after school. That instantly brightened my day.

So I haven't gotten all the egg activities and insect activities finished that I wanted to this week. I think I'm going to continue some of the egg activities the week after we get back from Spring break. I think they'll make good Math centers. Is that awful of me? Will the kids be over Easter eggs when it's a week past Easter? I have such a hard time getting everything in. I plan stuff and then other things take too long.
We're still going to be working on ladybugs a bit since we're "raising" some. I'm hoping that they won't turn into full adult ladybugs until after we get back from Spring break. According to a book we read, we should be ok. We stared a life cycle picture. All we've done so far is the eggs and the larva stage. I wanted them to use the ladybugs we have to draw their pictures from.
Meanwhile, we're going to keep a ladybug journal. I've made a template to share with you. My new favorite way to share documents is scribd. I like that I can see how many times it's downloaded. The clipart is from Graphics from the pond and the 3 AM teacher.

Ladybug Journal It's amazing how many people download things and don't leave any comments. I use to be guilty of that. I'll admit it. When I first started blog stalking, I would download tons of free resources and never leave any love for the blogger. But I've turned over a new leaf. I try really hard to comment on all blogs I get things from. I know how happy it makes me to hear someone has used something I worked hard on. I say this not to toot my horn or beg for comments. But just to make you think. I really make a concious effort to comment on blogs I read and leave a word of encouragement. Of course I'm no where as viligant about it as Jennifer from First Grade Blue Skies. She's so awesome and always leaving a word of encouragement on my blog and others. So you should check her out and leave her some love if you haven't yet.








Please leave me some comment love if you download the ladybug journal or even if you don't. I love comments. They brighten my day. They make this last day and half before spring break bearable. If you don't leave me a comment, you should at least check Jennifer out and leave here some love.

April Currently

So I filled this out on Sunday night but then scheduled it to post today. I love Farley and her currently parties. You need to link up and check out everyone else's currently post. They are so fun to read. I'm loving the superhero question. It's a lot of fun to think about.

 

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!

Make it Monday!

I'm so excited to share my newest project with you. It is my first attempt at embroidery and I definitely need some practice. But this was a fun and easy project. It was a good way to get my feet wet.

I was inspired by the blog Little Lovelies. You can check out here post here to see the directions for making it. I'm really sad my pictures didn't download correctly. They were right when I saved them. One of my biggest mistakes was using too many threads. I used the whole thing instead of breaking it up into 2 or 3 strands of the thread. I also need a little more practice making my stitches the same size. But I will be trying a new embroidery project soon. By the way, if you are interesting in trying out this craft you need to check out Little Lovelies. She has some great ideas and tutorials. What are you crafting this week?

Spring has sprung

This is the lady bug home with a few larvae crawling around.

Spring has definitely sprung in my room. We finished up our plant unit this week on Monday by planting our seeds. I used Abby's Mystery box activity to add some mystery to the seed planting project. I wish I had taken a picture of my box. It's super cute. I used the box my Blogging Exchange Friend, Amy, sent me during the valentine's day exchange. It was perfect. I'll have to take a picture this week. I'm using it again on Monday to introduce my kids to our new friends, the ladybugs. This week we started our unit on insects. Our reading series had us read a book about Beetles and then we read The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle. I had other books I wanted to read but we just didn't seem to get to them. So I decided to extend insects into another week. This week is our last week before Spring break so I thought it would be ok to take a break from our usual reading series. I figured it out and we finish up our reading series by the first of May so an extra week won't be a big deal. I ordered the ladybug larvae from Insectlore and it came on Friday. I was expecting eggs but instead go a few baby ladybugs. I really hope they haven't transform med into the ladybugs over the weekend. I haven't introduced them to the kids yet.
We made some ladybugs and incorporated a little math into it. They had to make an addition sentence out of the number of dots they put on the bug. I've been so inspired by several blogs to incorporate more art into my day. But I'm a firm believer that it needs to be student created. I don't do patterns but have the students follow directions to create things. This is my way of incorporating some common core into the art projects. The listening standards apply well here. I also don't have a lot of copies to use on creating patterns for the students.

This coming week I plan to do a little more with The Grouchy Ladybug and hopefully a nonfiction book about ladybugs. I guess I need to hope they have one in the library. We're also going to read The Hungry Caterpillar and The Lonely Firefly. I also have some fun Easter activities planned with the plastic Easter eggs from the dollar tree. I hoped to have made the activities and post them today. But those freebies will have to come later. I do want to tell you about my newest item in Teacher's Notebook and Teachers Pay Teachers. It's Buggy for Words. Included in this packet are a game with Fry's phrases on it, some letter cards for word building and a some word cards for sentence building. They all have a bug themed. I made something similar for Valentine's day and used it with my kids I tutor. This time around I included a star e for a little magic e work for some of my higher kids. I busted the letter cards out last week and you would have thought it was something so cool just because I changed the clipart. Here are a couple of pictures of what is included and the item in action:

If you are interested in purchasing these items, click here for Teacher's Notebook and here for Teachers Pay Teachers. ** Update ** I added a free preview you can download of one of the games. So check it out!
I would love to get some feedback on my items. So the first 3 people to check out one of my stores and leave a comment with one of my items you would like, I'll send it to you for free. But you are committing to giving me some feedback on my items. I probably won't get anything out to you until tomorrow morning. How has spring sprung in your room?