New Year's Sale

To kick off 2013 I am having a sale in my TPT store. Everything is 20% off! Click on the image below to be taken to my store.

Happy New Year!!

New Year's Resolution Linky

Oh my goodness- I feel like I dropped off the face of the blogging earth there for awhile!! The entire month of December absolutely C-R-A-Z-Y! Every single day there was one thing after another to do. If I wasn't staying at school late preparing for lessons/parties/Christmas programs I was rushing off to some sort of wedding appointment- flowers, DJ, cake tastings (ok-- I could actually go to a cake tasting every day of the week and not be sick of it). My desk at school was a disaster and my apartment was even worse- whew! 

I am finally getting back into the swing of things and I am looking forward to 2013... it is gonna be a great year ya'll!! I am soooo looking forward to becoming a Mrs. AND having my Master's Degree.

I saw this adorable linky party from Jen at the Teacher's Cauldron and thought it would be the perfect fun way for me to get back into the mood for school. 

First lets start with blogging resolutions, because those are shorter :) I really am hoping to COMPLETE at least 8 posts a month... thats only 2 per week.. totally doable right?? I am also hoping to comment on all of these blogs I stalk frequently look at ;)  I know how happy I get when I get a sweet comment on my blog, so why not make other people smile with a sweet comment? It only takes two minutes of my time and if it makes somebody else happy, then it is totally worth it.

Personal resolutions

Well with my wedding being 195 days, 1 hour, 8 minutes and 10 seconds away (but who's counting??) I am hoping to force myself, yes FORCE myself, to go to yoga at least 3-4 times a week. My fiance and I are both trying to get into better shape so we came up with an idea... the workout jar!

I originally saw this idea on Pinterest and then we modified it to make it a little more competitive, and therefore motivating. 

1. My fiance and I are each going to take out $75 cash in singles (hold the strip club jokes please!) starting January 1st and decorate our own Mason jar. Let's be honest... when I say "decorate" for him, I mean write his name on it in Sharpie. 

2. Then, each time we work out for at least 45 minutes, we get to put $1 in our jar. 

3. By the time we get to our pre-determined date, the person who has the most money in their jar gets to keep the money in BOTH jars and go spend it on something they wouldn't normally spend it on.

This will hopefully work really well for us because we are both super competitive, in a good way. This will motivate us to want to work out more, so we get to put another dollar in that jar. I will let you know how it goes!

My other personal resolution is to keep my head above water for the next 17 weeks before my graduation. It sounds like a long time, but I have a lot of work to do and I know it will go by SUPER fast. Hopefully by being organized and tackling things off my grad school to-do list one week at a time I will be able to do it all without going crazy.

Now it is your turn to go link up!!

Silence

12 in 12 Linky Party

My Christmas craziness is finally starting to settle down a little-whew! We had our class Christmas party today and Christmas break is finally within my grasp!! Only a few more days until freedom :) I stumbled across this Linky Party on just about everyone under the sun's blog this week and had to do one. What a fun idea, right?! Here goes...

12. Favorite Movie: Dark Knight Rises- I swear my fiance talked about this movie nonstop for the entire week before it came out... and of course we just HAD to go see it at midnight that night :) It ended up being a really good movie though- with a great twist at the end! I won't give it away in case you haven't seen it yet :)

 

11. Favorite TV Show: Bachelorette-- oh my gosh, no doubts about this one! I still have friends who run into Emily Maynard in Charlotte out at the grocery store or the mall or Target and I haven't seen her yet. I swear I am like the only one who hasn't seen her!

10. Favorite Restaurant- Cowfish Sushi and Burger Bar. This place is close enough for me to walk to and has a great selection of sushi and cheeseburgers (and a little bit of a mix between the two) as well as some great drink specials :) I LOVE their key lime pie martini!

9. Favorite New Thing You Tried- Hot yoga!! I have loved yoga for years but finally tried hot yoga for the first time at the end of the summer and just completely fell in love. Now I can't go back to regular yoga.

8. Favorite Gift You Got- my engagement ring :) Does that count as a gift??

7. Favorite Thing I Pinned- Sight words on cookie sheets. This has come in handy this year! My kids love to use the letter magnets on the cookie sheets and I love watching them practice their sight words

 

Although this one seems pretty appropriate right about now:

6. Favorite Blog Post- I loved doing the Teacher Week blog posts through Blog Hoppin'. Those were so much fun!

5. Best Accomplishment- keeping up a 4.0 in grad school while teaching, tutoring after school AND planning a wedding. I am one busy girl!

4. Favorite Picture- This one is a current one of my little baby Tucker dressed up as Santa Claus. He makes me so happy :)

3. Favorite Memory- Getting engaged!! I have so many great memories from 2012 though, this pick had quite a bit of competition! I was very lucky to have such a great year this year :)

2. Goal for 2013- Graduate with my Master's Degree and GET MARRIED!! Oh, and to do both without going crazy!

1. One Little Word- HAPPINESS

It is so important that we all feel even just a little bit of this everyday, even on the days when you are sick of paperwork, conferences, e-mails, etc. We all have so much to be grateful for and should look at the things that make us happy a little more often

Have a great night ya'll!

Monday Made It... On Wednesday?!

I was all excited that I had another Monday Made It to post but somehow this week has completely gotten away from me. Here we are and it is already Wednesday- I am certainly NOT complaining!!! Is anyone else's week going this fast?? We have been so busy making all of our Christmas crafts and hunting down our gingerbread man (who ran out of the oven by the way, gingerbread men tend to do that apparently :) ). Here are a few pictures of the many things I have made either at home or in class this with my kiddos this week:

 Earlier this week I had to make cookies for my end of the semester grad school party. I saw these adorable cookies last year on Pinterest and took the lazy way out put my own little twist on them-- pre-made dough instead of making it from scratch! These are peanut butter cookies with chocolate covered pretzels as antlers and M&Ms as eyes and a nose. Just pop them in the oven to bake, take them out, decorate while they are still hot and voila- reindeer cookies!

Last week with our prayer partners we made these mangers to kick off our study of Advent and our excitement for Christmas:

They ended up on our bulletin board in the hall with some of the lyrics from "Away in a Manger". When it gets closer to Christmas we will make little Baby Jesus crafts to tuck into our mangers... so cute!

We also made these Christmas trees as one of our centers this week. I had all of the pieces set out on my kidney table and they had to follow step by step directions to complete it. All of you kindergarten teachers know how difficult following directions can be sometimes!! It was very challenging for some of my little ones to determine which piece was the longest just by looking at them. They had to set them all next to each other to figure it out. They built their trees from the bottom up, cut out their star, and then decorated with "snow" (white paint) using a Q-tip. As you can see we had some with just a few snowflakes and then some who made an all out blizzard!

Two more things that we are doing in class to celebrate Advent/Christmas are our chocolate Advent calendar and our countdown to Christmas chain. Every day we pick out our next chocolate and talk about the shape of the chocolate and what that symbol represents and we cut one more ring off our countdown to Christmas chain. Needless to say, we are super excited about Christmas in K2!

I hope you all have a great rest of the week!!

Holiday Chevron Papers

So yesterday when I was filling out this month's Currently with Farley from "Oh Boy Fourth Grade" I decided that I needed to learn how to start creating my own background papers. I figured it couldn't be that hard, and I was right! I think I am addicted now :) Making new papers is an easy way to put off working on my final exam for grad school this semester!! 'Tis the season to procrastinate, right? Or is that just me?? 

While putting off my gigantic paper that is due in 28 hours, I uploaded some new holiday themed papers to TPT. So if anyone else is in the mood to procrastinate and make some new holiday themed activities for their lessons this week, click HERE and download my background papers.

Have a great rest of your Sunday :)

Currently December

Yay!! It is finally December! Don't you just love this time of year?? I love blaring my Christmas music in the car and in my apartment while I do chores :) If you haven't already, link up with Farley from Oh Boy Fourth Grade!!

Christmas Math Centers and Supplemental Activities- Giveaway!

Holy Guacamole it is Christmas season!! Woohoo!! Every year I forget how quickly fall goes by... I feel like Halloween was just a few weeks ago?? Oh well, I am okay with Christmas being here because it is my favorite time of year :) Don't tell anyone, but I even listen to Christmas music in the middle of the summer because I love it THAT much!! I am about to head out Christmas shopping but before I do, I wanted to let ya'll know that I added one more thing to my TPT store for the Cyber Monday sale and will hopefully be adding the other one later on tonight. To go to the packet, click HERE or click on the pictures below:

The one I just added is my Christmas Math Centers and Supplemental Activities Packet. Since this packet is only math focused it is shorter than my others and will also be cheaper too- wahoo for you! I am still working on the Christmas Literacy Centers and Supplemental Activities Packet and will hopefully add that one later.. and then a combo pack of both of them together. 

As usual, I will give this packet to the first two people to comment below telling me your favorite thing about the Christmas season :) Don't forget to leave your e-mail!!

Blog Hoppin' Linky for Cyber Monday

If ya'll haven't already linked up your tpt stores with Blog Hoppin'... head on over!! I am so excited to finally buy all those items I have been eyeing up :)

 

Here is their adorable button... so much cuter than the one from TPT right??

Upcoming sale and a little more Hawaii

Are any of the rest of you as excited about this Cyber Monday sale as I am?? Time to buy all of those items on my wish list again! Who all is participating in the sale?? If you are, leave a comment below. I would love to stop by your store on Monday and have a little look!!

P.S. As promised, a few more pictures from our vacation so far...

 

My fiance is with us and had never been to the Arizona Memorial before so we took a trip over there. This was the view from the boat on the way back to the land memorial.

 

This is the beach from our resort in Ko' Olina.. I love this view!!

 

We went to Maui for a day for the Maui Invitational Tournament put on by my sister's school, Chaminade University. 

We went to a few of the basketball games.

Don't forget to leave a comment below if you are participating in the sale too!!

School Updates, Wedding Updates, and Life Updates!

Oh my goodness I forgot how busy this time of year is!! Busy at school AND outside of school! For the first time in what feels like forever I have the time to sit down and make a post! 

Well first I'll start with school... We made our Thanksgiving bulletin board that we make every year where we write some of the things we are thankful for on our turkey's feathers. We also draw pictures of some of these things because it is more fun to draw a picture than write the word sometimes :)

We are still adding our feathers as we go so hopefully our turkey will look a little more full soon! Notice that double border again?? I am all about that double border this year!!!

On Thursday we had our annual Thanksgiving Program where we have adorable songs, dance moves, crafts, and snacks to share with the parents. It went VERY well and almost all of the parents came!! They made their Native American costumes with parent volunteers who came in last week and the Pilgrim costumes we keep from year to year. The students who were Pilgrim costumes were the "lucky ones" because they got to be both-- Pilgrims at the Thanksgiving Program and they get to be Native Americans whenever they want since the costume is theirs to keep!

The Native Americans have vests and hats. The vests are made from white t-shirts from Wal-Mart that a parent volunteer dyed brown and then the students decorated them with Native American symbols. The hats are the same ones from our St. Kateri craft we made last month. The Pilgrims boys are wearing Pilgrim hats and a little white collar that is hard to see because they are all in the back :( The Pilgrim girls (there is one up front on the right!) have bonnets and frilly collars. 

I wish I had thought to upload the Native American symbols page that we used for decorating but I forgot and now I am out of town... I will do it when I get back if I remember!!

Now for wedding updates.. I have a dress!! Yay!! We are finally at the point where we have checked off 37 things from our knot.com checklist... but just when you think that sounds like a lot, we still have 145 to go!! One of the things I did recently was "pop the question" to my bridesmaids/maid of honor/matron of honor. I found a cute little poem online, tailored it to fit my fiance and I, and made a cute little craft from the Cricut. 

Then, I ordered these adorable cookies from Flour Pot. Inside each cookie box you can put a card that says "Will you be my bridesmaid?", or "Will you be my maid of honor?", etc. They have a pretty big variety you can choose from but I wanted dresses. I had them frosted in the color that my bridesmaids dresses will be with purple flowers (which is what their bouquets will have).

Lastly, when they said yes (thanks God they all did!), I gave them a little bottle of champagne to celebrate. Of course I was buying all 8 bottles at the grocery store at once and who do I run into at the store, with 8 bottles of champagne in my cart, a student's parent!! Oh, the embarrassment... 

And finally, a quick little life update..

For Thanksgiving we came out to visit my sister in Hawaii!! This picture was right after it stopped raining this morning. I will take more when it is sunny later!! I will upload more pictures throughout the week of the beautiful places we will go visit. 

Have a great weekend!!

Currently November

I just love linking up with Farley for her Currently linky parties. I was so giddy filling this out thinking that last month as I was doing this- I wasn't even engaged yet :) Who knows how much farther into all this I will be next month!!!

50th Day Giveaway and Sale!

For many of you the 50th day of school is coming up this week. Woohoo!! Can you believe how fast time is going by?? In order to celebrate, I will be giving away my 50th day packet to the first two followers who tell me TWO skills they would like to see in my next unit- a surprise unit!

For those of you who are not the first two commenters, don't fret! My 50th day packet will be 20% off the rest of this weekend. HERE it is!!

During this Thanksgiving season I feel it is appropriate for me to thank all of you for the support you have given me in this past year of blogging. Not only have I made a little extra cash to put towards my wedding and a future down payment on a house via TPT, but I have gained so much confidence and renewed energy in my teaching. I appreciate you all so much-- THANK YOU!!!

Now go enjoy your weekend ;)

What I Am Thankful For...

I saw this Linky Party on Storie's blog and knew right away that I had to do it. What a wonderful way to kick off the Thanksgiving season right?? Go on over to her blog and check it out!!

 

 

Sight Word Magnets on Cookie Sheets

So today I finally got around to making one of those adorable things I saw on pinterest this summer. Ok fine, by "make" I mean print off from a website where someone else had already made it :) My grade partner had bought the cookie sheets from the Dollar Store this summer for sight word magnets and was nice enough to let us borrow them today to spell out our sight words. Here are our pictures below:

The handout I printed for this came from HERE and it is FREE.. woohoo!

Gotta love those centers that can be thrown together in a matter of minutes, right??

Happy Halloween everyone!!

P.S. Today was day 46... I can't wait for day 50 and all of our 50th day fun!!

Hip Hip Hooray! It is ALMOST the 50th Day!

We are already almost at the 50th day of school- I can't believe it!! All of the 50th day packets that I have seen on TPT have a 50's Rock N' Roll theme to them. I wasn't really feeling the Rock N' Roll theme so I created a new little packet of activities to celebrate the 50th day.

 

For this weekend only it will be on sale for $2.00 and then on Monday morning it will go up to an unknown (by me!) amount. Click on the picture above to go to my TPT store or click HERE!

I hope you're all having a great weekend!

Pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins!

This week we have been working on our pumpkin unit. We completed our "Getting to know our pumpkin" handout a little bit at a time throughout the week while we have investigated our pumpkin. 

 Alright, alright I admit we did not count all of the seeds in the pumpkin. When my kiddos went to music, I stashed half of them away. Thank God because we ended up counting 450 that I did keep and that took what felt like forever!!

  

This is our beginning sound concentration game. I made the mistake of forgetting to tell my assistant to glue the letter cards onto a different color of construction paper than the picture cards until after they were laminated- oops! So then I put stickers on the back of the letter cards and told the students to pick one with a sticker on the back and one without. This worked out pretty well until they started memorizing which letters had which sticker on the back. It was pretty clever so I couldn't even be mad :)

This was them coloring the life cycle stages before gluing them onto the green yarn "vine". I totally forgot to take a picture of the adorable vines. I will have to take some tomorrow and make a post!!

And finally, we carved our pumpkin today!! After voting using our "ballot" from my unit, we tallied the results and figured out what our pumpkin would look like. Here he is!! Pretty plain, but considering I had to carve something quickly enough to keep the attention of a bunch of 5 year olds it worked out pretty well!!

Friday is tomorrow-- woohoo!!

Beginning of pumpkins and last week's shape monsters...

This week we began our pumpkin unit and boy oh boy am I excited!! We used our pumpkin "ballots" and voted this morning on how our pumpkin will be carved. It is looking like we will have triangle eyes, a triangle nose, and a semi circle mouth. The kiddos (and I) are super pumped about it.

Another thing that we create every year at this time is our pumpkin life cycle activity I found from A-Z Teacher Stuff. After reading several trade books on the life cycle of a pumpkin and discussing it, we use the handout below and color in the pictures. We cut out the pictures and then glue them closed onto green yarn to represent the vine of the pumpkin life cycle. Then we create our pumpkins. Today we started painting our pumpkins. 

 

We use non-waxy paper plates and paint them orange. Once the orange has dried, we cut a little hole at the top of one of them and then staple them together. After that, we paint black lines on our pumpkins but as you can see, we have not gotten that far yet!!

Another thing that I wanted to share with ya'll was one of our favorite Halloween activities that we did last year, our Spooky Shape Monsters. I apologize that I can not for the life of me remember which adorable blog I originally saw this on- so if you recognize it PLEASE let me know so I can give credit where credit is due!! I unfortunately did not come up with this super cute idea on my own. Anyway, these shape monsters are glyphs- as if we don't do enough of these in my class already anyway!

 

  

Another little tip that I am sure many of you all do already anyway is to either cut your die cuts out of scrapbook paper or to mount your die cuts onto scrapbook paper. This always adds a little extra touch that makes everything just a little bit cuter :)

 

Pumpkin Mini Unit- Giveaway for the first 3 to comment

Here is my pumpkin mini unit that features science, math, and literacy activities:

In this unit there are quantity discrimination games, beginning sounds games, ending sounds games, pumpkin measurement activities, graphs, a syllable counting game, science predictions and recording data of actual results and more! You can find it HERE at my TPT store.

And because I am just completely stumped about what to dress up as this year for our school's Halloween parade, the first three people to comment below with a suggestion of an appropriate teacher costume AND leave their e-mail will get this mini unit for free!

Have a spook-tacular night!