I'm Baaaaaack!! With a Little Johnny Appleseed Freebie :)

Well Holy Guacamole it has been a long time!! I've been pretty busy for the past few years between getting married, Mr. Hubs and I buying AND renovating our first house. We had NO idea just how much would go into fixing up our home-- the shows on the DIY channel and HGTV make it look like a piece of cake! While the projects may not have been difficult, they sure were time consuming! 

Anyway, I am GLAD to be back :)

The past two weeks we have been learning all about apples. Our apple life cycle, the star inside the apple, and tasting many apple treats. Many of my little 18 kinder kiddos had never had apple chips and apple cider before, so they were pleasantly surprised by the yummy taste! We used this little apple tasting data sheet throughout the week while we tasted our delicious treats and finished the week with homemade applesauce-- my fave :)

This week we will begin our focus on Johnny Appleseed, just in time for his birthday celebration on September 26th. Here is a little fun Johnny Appleseed freebie if you are still planning your lessons for the week :)

Click here to download this little freebie.

I hope ya'll have a great week and enjoy this beautiful fall weather!!

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!