Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire!

As if you all didn't already know by now, Mrs. Reed over at Flying Into First Grade is hosting the most adorable linky party-- two truths and a lie! My college roommate used to make us play two truths and a lie and I was always TERRIBLE at it. Hopefully you all won't be able to figure me out quite as easily as my roommates always did :)


Here goes:

1. Throughout my entire life, I have had 4 fish, 7 dogs, and 1 rabbit as pets. We are huge animal lovers in my family and were always suckers for an animal from the shelter. I'm not really sure how that explains the rabbit and the fish.. unless you count the pet store as a "shelter".

2. I live close enough to my school that I could walk. By no means do I actually do it... on the days that it is nice enough outside to walk I would work up quite a sweat by the time I got there!! Nobody wants to walk into work all sweaty-- yuck!

3. I have traveled to 46 of the 50 states and 8 other countries. Neither of my parents traveled very much growing up and were determined for their 3 girls to have different experiences than they did. Every year we go on at least one big vacation.. which my older sister still goes on with us almost every year even though she is much older and married. I hope I get to do the same!!

Good luck guessing!!

Five for Friday and a St. Patty's Day Sale

I am linking up with Doodle Bug's Teaching again for the Five for Friday.. except that my five for Friday is more like seven or eight for Friday... woops!

 This week we were all about some leprechauns! We made leprechaun traps with our 4th grade friends, leprechaun punch (from Deanna Jump's unit- which I LOVE!), and many leprechaun crafts. One of our crafts was the leprechaun glyph.. this is from Deanna Jump's unit but changed up a little for our class :)

 

 Here is a close up of one:

We also made these adorable rainbows with our "If I Found a Pot of Gold.." writing prompt. The rainbows were made from tissue paper and cotton balls- so simple yet they loved it.

 

This week in our art center we painted paper plates and sprinkled them with a little glitter to make festive shamrocks. Sorry the one picture is so dark, my iphone camera is no bueno :) I love our little Easter egg stained glass windows in the background!!

 

 Last but not least, we have been growing sunflowers in our classroom and they have grown so fast!! Several of them are already ready for the top cup to be taken off from the little "greenhouse". We have been writing in our class "Garden Journal" every few days to keep track of the flowers' progress and my little ones are eating it up! Our goal is to take our strong, healthy flowers home over Spring Break to plant in their gardens at home. Here are the steps we came up with as a class for growing sunflowers after reading the story "Zinnia's Flower Garden" (and the informational text in the back of the book if you have Journeys)

I have uploaded my new Supplemental Centers for Journeys Unit 5 packet to TPT. Ya'll bought up the last unit like crazy so I knew I needed to go ahead and make another one for unit 5!! It is on sale from now until Sunday at midnight so go and get it while it's hot :) Have a great weekend!!

Five for Friday

This is my first time linking up for Doodle Bug's Five for Friday and I am so happy I did! I usually am so dead tired by Friday that I can't even think about blogging... by I'm sure Saturday morning isn't too late to join :)

http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/2013/03/five-for-friday-linky-party-march-8th.html

This week we began growing our own flowers in our mini "greenhouses". We talked about how a greenhouse is usually a glass building where plants are grown and the windows/walls protect them from weather conditions. Being clear, the windows allow sunlight to get through to still help the plants grow. In our greenhouses, I haven't yet poked holes in the top for the plants to breathe. This will allow the water we initially sprayed in the cups to evaporate to the top of the cup, forming droplets, and then we will tap the top of the cups to make it "rain" for our seeds. This activity is plant life cycle and water cycle all in one :)

 

 At this point our seeds have not yet sprouted, but I will post more pictures as soon as they do. All you need for this activity are two clear plastic cups per child, enough soil to fill one of the cups, three seeds (we used sunflower seeds) and a spray bottle filled with water. 

Towards the end of the week we returned from music class to find that a leprechaun had wreaked havoc in our room! Chairs were flipped upside down, carpet squares all over the place, our table buckets had materials taken out and thrown all over! We were very upset that we had to clean up after the leprechaun's mess so we decided to write our fourth grade friends to help us make traps for them this week. We were so caught up in the craziness that I forgot to take a picture of our super sweet note. Oh well, next year!

Another thing that we have been doing in class lately is our "Chat and Chew" which is a one-on-one lunch with the teacher to discuss your favorite book and why you love it so much. One of my little girls brought in this book this week and I thought it would make the sweetest gift for someone with a little girl!! It is a personalized book written about whichever girl you choose.They spell out the letters of the girl's name using positive adjectives to describe her (ex: K is for kindness, i is for intelligent, etc).

 And finally... on Friday we all got to go to a professional development at one of the largest schools in our diocese and meet in some of the classrooms for our small group sessions. While roaming up and down the halls I saw this adorable little craft they made for Dr. Seuss day that I saw all over Pinterest and now I am so sad we didn't make it :( I guess we will have to do that next year as well!

 

That's all I have for this week. Stop by Doodle Bug's Teaching and link up with Five for Friday!!

Oh. My. Lord. It's MARCH!!!!

I cannot believe it is March already!! I am SO excited about the warmer weather, the longer, sunshinier days, and the fact that Spring Break is just a few weeks away!!

I am probably the last person to link up with Farley for Currently, but oh well :)

 

First of all, how adorable and festive is this Currently?? I love the rainbow and love the beautiful green and white pattern at the bottom-- so cute!

Listening: Why is it that sometimes the sound of absolutely nothing sounds so wonderful?? Something about it is just so relaxing :)

Loving: warmer weather is on the horizon... 67 degrees and sunny here next Sunday.. let's hope it stays that way!!

Thinking: Is it just me or has this school year gone by WAY too fast?? I can't believe our 3rd quarter progress reports went home last week and we will begin report cards so soon. Where has this year gone?!

Wanting: Just about everything in Anthropologie right now... especially this super cute Sunshine-y yellow jacket:

 

It is just so bright and cheery! 

Needing: a pedicure before sandals season begins.. there is nothing cute about my feet right now!

Lately I have become SUPER obsessed with Cherry Coke Zero... it is so delish and the perfect afternoon pick-me-up when my morning coffee is starting to wear off :)

As for pessimistic people.. in the words of Sweet Brown "Ain't nobody got time for that!". 

Have a great afternoon ya'll!

Love is patient, love is kind, happy feast of St. Valentine!

Oh my gosh last week was hands down the most exhausting week EVER! Let me give you a quick run down of what last week at our school looked like:

Monday- 100th Day

Tuesday- Mardi Gras

Wednesday- Ash Wednesday

Thursday- Valentine's Day

Friday- Collapse with exhaustion :) 

Did anyone else have everything happen all at once for them this week?? I am soo happy about our 3 day weekend to recover! Especially since we got a little snow!

 My little one got his first day EVER in the snow :) He LOVED it!

 

So this Monday was the most favorite of all school days... the 100th day!! I do not remember the 100th day being such a big deal when I was in kindergarten but boy oh boy is it a big deal now! We started with our 100th day crowns from Julie Lee's website (who was one of my first blog loves by the way, she is a genius!).

 

After making our adorable crowns, we began on our 100 compliments poster in the hall. The students had to write 100 compliments for their friends and teachers and stick them up in the hallway for all to see! This was a really fun lesson because it was a confidence booster for all my little ones when their friends wrote a compliment to them! 

After the 100th day came another one of my favorite days of the school year... Mardi Gras! At our school we love celebrating this day before lent with silliness and snacks and a big parade at the end of the day. 

I am so mad at myself that I didn't take more pictures on this day. We started with our Mardi Gras masks and discussed the three colors of Mardi Gras (purple, gold, and green) and what those colors stand for (faith, power, and justice). I found this free mask for them to color on Pinterest:

 

Rather than use string to make it stay on, we glued it to a Popsicle stick so they could hold it. We also put a feather on them for a little decorative flair :)

We played so many games and got to eat our yummy king cake on this day but I was too busy to take pictures :( Next year!!

Wednesday was Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent. Throughout Lent we are using these "Lenten Path" handouts from Catholic Icing (another one of my favorite blogs).

 

This one is colored already for Wednesday and Thursday but you color it all the way through to Easter every day that you successfully give up your item you've given up for Lent.

Finally on Friday, we celebrated Valentine's Day! These are the glyphs we created:

 

These glyphs are from my Full Year of Glyphs unit on TPT.

Have a great Sunday!! I hope you all do something exciting on your day off for President's Day :)

Wrapping up unit 4 with some fun word work :)

Word work may just be one of my favorite things the students work on. I love how easy it is to make learning our sight words hands on and interactive. Last week we started wrapping up unit 4 in our reading series, Journeys. I've created a little packet of activities for the students to complete as centers. In this packet, students practice molding our sight words with play-doh, going on a sight word scavenger hunt around the room, and more.

We used letter stamps to stamp our sight words. This took them what felt like forever but they were so focused on what they were doing, you could hear a pin drop-- a teacher's dream :)

 We also love our Rainbow Write :)

 

We had more fun activities but I forgot to take pictures of them. You know how it goes, you plan to take pictures but then get so caught up in something else. I need to be better about that! This packet is available in my TPT store for those of you kindergarten teachers who use Journeys. Click the picture below to go to it.

Tomorrow is our 100th day of school and we are all dressing up like we are 100 years old. Our kindergarten cuteness level is about to go way off the charts!! Can't wait to show you all some pictures :)

Currently February!

Two posts in one day?!? I completely forgot it was Currently time earlier... time to play catch up!!

 

Listening...  to Hunter Hayes "Wanted". This song makes me so happy! Something about his voice is just so soothing :)

Loving... February already!?! YESSSS! Spring break is only two months away. Where is this year going?!

Thinking... Grad School graduation is right around the corner in May (alright, its not THAT close, but considering how much I still have to do, it feels like it will be here so soon!!). I still have to finish my final research project and lead a professional development at my school on top of the rest of my papers and assignments.

Wanting... to be right HERE right NOW:

Every time I get stressed with school/grad school/wedding planning, I take a look at these pictures and daydream :) It will all be worth it.

Pet Peeves... the giant mess that my apartment is becoming right now. i feel like every time I finish a load of laundry, there are three more waiting. Every time I do the dishes, a whole new stack is waiting on me. It is so hard to stay on top of cleaning sometimes!! Especially when it is at the bottom of my priority list.

The Rest of Catholic Schools Week

Oh my goodness was Catholic Schools Week exhausting! Last night I came home, collapsed on the couch and took a hard earned nap. We had so much fun last week with all of our activities but I am definitely looking forward to a normal week! Earlier this week I posted a little bit about what we did on Monday. The rest of our week went a little something like this:

Tuesday: Teacher luncheon and Vocabulary Parade

Wednesday: Movie in the afternoon

Thursday: "How Well Do You Know Your Teacher?" Game Show and Invention Fair

Friday: All School Mass, Science Show, and 5th graders vs teachers kickball game

All throughout the week we had Penny Wars and Candy Grams (buy a candy bar to send to a friend and write them a message).

Our vocabulary parade was so much fun! The students all had to dress up in a costume or outfit that represented a vocabulary word. Here is a pic of a couple of the kids dressed as "technology" and "orbit".

We had so much fun but this teacher was absolutely exhausted by the time it was all over. 

I wanted to share with all of you the bulletin board we ended up going with for CSW. We tried to stick with the theme of "Raising the Standards":

 

Each student had to write one goal on a circular piece of lined paper and illustrate themselves achieving their goal. We put it into a cross formation to keep with the CSW theme. Next to our board, we had the words "Kindergarten is raising the standards". I love this crinkle border I saw on Peace, Love, and First Grade. Laura is so creative, you should check out her blog if you get a chance!

Have a great Saturday!!

Beginning of February and Super Bowl Sale!

Beginning on Super Bowl Sunday I will be hosting a sale at my TPT store. I'm sure you already know the one... the big 28% off sale!

I have recently uploaded a super fun Mardi Gras unit and also a unit full of centers for Unit 4 of the reading series Journeys.

If any of you other kindergarten teachers use Journeys, this will make your life significantly easier for a few weeks!! The centers are so much more realistic and fun than the ones recommended in the manual. There is nothing worse than trying to do your small reading groups and being interrupted by students in another group who aren't doing what they are supposed to. I hate when the little ones I am working with in small group lose time due to that! The Journeys centers in my packet will keep student interest longer and follow very simple directions.

Just in case you are too busy watching the Super Bowl or preparing for a SB party, I've extended my sale to Monday as well. Monday will only be 20% off though so try to make all your purchases Sunday if you can!!

I will post more pictures from CSW later tonight... we had so much fun this week!

Catholic Schools Week Day 1

This week is by far my favorite week of the school year- Catholic Schools Week! For those of you who don't know, Catholic Schools Week is an entire week of fun activities dedicated to celebrating attending a Catholic School. Each day we have at least one fun activity planned that is outside the norm.

 

This year's theme for CSW is "Raise the Standards". Throughout this week, students are being asked to find a way to "raise" their academic standards while always keeping our faith as our highest focus (hence the cross being the tallest in the graph). Today's activities were mostly just prep work for the other days that are coming up or the beginning of week long activities that we will be participating in. Here are a few of the activities we did:

1. Penny Wars- Each class has a jar located on a table outside the principal's office. At the beginning of each day, students are asked to bring in their pennies to put in their class jar. Silver coins can be put in other class' jars and will count as negative points. So for example, if a fifth grade class had a lot of pennies, we could put in a quarter to give them -25 points. Our class was in the lead but then we had a lot of silver coins put into our jar- so sad. Who puts silver (negative) coins in a kindergarten jar!?

2. Teacher trivia- each day the secretary will make an announcement in the beginning of the day with one interesting fact about a teacher. The students will make a guess as a class about which teacher the fact belongs to. The correct answer is announced at the end of the day. I found out that one of our teachers grew up down the street from Elvis Presley! Who, by the way, none of my kindergartners knew!

3. Prep-work for vocabulary parade- Today we met with our prayer partners to complete the prep work for our school wide vocabulary parade. Tomorrow morning each student will come in to school dressed up to represent a vocabulary word. For example, some of my girls will dress up as princesses to represent the word "royal". Today we met with our prayer partners so they could help us make signs to wear that display our vocabulary word. I can't wait to post pics tomorrow!!

4. Writing prompt for bulletin board- Each of my students had to come up with one goal they had for the rest of the school year. In order to "raise" their standards, I asked them to think of one thing they would like to improve on between now and the end of the school year. I plan on putting up their writing on our bulletin board tomorrow and taking a pic to share.

Tomorrow we have our teacher luncheon ( a full hour with no students where the teachers finally get to relax together and chit chat about non-school related things.. can you see why this is my favorite week of the year?!) and our vocabulary parade- yay!

Mardi Gras Unit and a Few Engagement Pictures :)

Happy Hump Day! I love Wednesdays because the week is all downhill from here :) I finally got around to uploading my Mardi Gras mini unit to TPT. I cannot wait to use this unit in my class!

 

Last week we got to see our engagement pictures and I thought I would share a few of my favorites with you :)

I especially love this one with our little four legged baby in it!! It makes me so happy :)

Monday Made It and Snowman Glyph

I have finally gotten around to posting the jars that I made for my fiance and I to use as our "exercise jars". These jars that I decorated for us have to do with our New Years Resolution. Every time that we exercise for at least 45 minutes, we get to put one dollar in our jar. By the time Easter rolls around, the person with the most money in their jar gets to keep the money in BOTH jars! It is neck and neck right now!! He is only beating me by one dollar-- which is killing me that I am losing!! I am seriously considering working out for a second time today just so we can at least be tied. 

Anyway, here are our jars:

 

1. I started with cheap jars like these that I found at Wal-Mart for $3.99 (I think??) and then used supplies I already had at home in my craft box (which has now spilled over into three craft boxes-- I'm addicted!!)

2. I used my paint pens and a touch of ribbon to decorate our jars to make them a little more pleasant to look at and voila!

 It is amazing what a little paint, ribbon and time can do!

Onto my school "made it"... my kids actually made these last week but I forgot to take up close pictures of them. They had to write about one reason they like winter and then decorate their hot chocolate mug with a wintry scene..

 "I like hot cocoa." The picture is supposed to be of other hot chocolate mugs.

This one makes me smile.. it is a Rapunzel snowman with the caption "I like snow because I like to make snow princesses." It just warms my heart!

I love the little marshmallows they glued above their hot chocolate mugs.. although some of them are floating off :)

We also made these snowman glyphs from my "Full Year of Glyphs" packet on TPT.

 

You can tell how old this sign is by how simple it is! I am definitely going to have to make a new one after this year. I look at that sign and see how much I have learned in the past year about making cute documents!

Maybe some new updated signs can be next month's "Monday Made It"?!

Mardi Gras FREEBIE!

I am working on my Mardi Gras unit and wanted to share with all of you a little freebie :)

Using the colors purple, green, and yellow, the students should write the sight words listed next to the line. The first handout are words used from the Journeys reading series that we use at my school (which I LOVE by the way!). The other handout uses words from Fry's list of 100 Words.

This will be in my Mardi Gras unit as well as 30 more pages of other fun material. Be sure to check it out when I upload it in a few days :)

Have a great day!