Apple's Galore!

I have had a very busy year thus far and have had trouble keeping up with this blog but, I am working on it.  I wanted to share a craft I found on Pinterest and got to do with my Kinders.

We studied apples for 2 weeks and did everything from count, graph, measure, stamp, write about, taste and even cook with apples.  We also got to celebrate Johnny Appleseed's birthday.  We did a guided draw of good ol' Johnny.  What fun that was!!  I love seeing what they create.  One craft we did really was my favorite.  I pinned it and had to try.  The pin came from http://firstgradeblueskies.blogspot.com, and her's were so adorable!!  Here is how ours turned out.

Here is a large group picture.

Here is one closer up.  

Aren't they the cutest??  I just love them and plan to keep them up for most of the fall season.  We also made paper apples to look like candy apples. You can see it here.

These aren't mine but, they are just as cute!!

Hope you enjoy, I'd love to see what you and your class does with an Apple unit.  Leave a link in the comments and I will check it out!  Erin

New School Year

It has not been the easiest start to our school year.  I have 19 very special little kinders that are keeping me  busy and on my toes.  Some more then others.  I have gone from anger, frustration, joy, happiness, exhaustion and other various emotions.  I am going to continue to work on the positive and find the joy in my day.  Other wise I will fail my kinders and that is not what I will allow to happen.  Here is a positive quote to keep me going, maybe it will help you as well.  I hope you are all having an amazing school year thus far.

We have learned many things the first few weeks.  Our themes have consisted of Back to School, getting to know each other, Names and Nursery Rhymes.  We get to start one of my favorites next week.  APPLES!  Can't wait to share with you what we create.

New Ocean Unit

Ocean Fun!

I just finished up a new product with 5 literacy and 5 math pages of Ocean themed fun!  Here is a description of the set-

Literacy includes-
Letter sounds
Filling missing letter
Creative writing
Description words “Dolphins”
Fish Can, Have, Are

Math includes-
Counting
Missing numbers
Patterns
Tallies
Domino Adding

I always enjoy teaching a Ocean theme.  It is fun, and the kids always love it.  Hope you like this set and find it helpful in your classroom.  

Little Minds at Work- Amazing Blog Share

Blog Share!  Little Minds At Work by Tara West

Recently I was going through my Pinterest boards and looking for old pins that I may need for the upcoming school year.  You know how it goes, you pin something and forget it and then when you find it you could of used it many lessons back.  So there I was going through and came across a pin for Dollar Store Finds.  If you know me that is a must for a new school year.

I open the pin and come across this AMAZING blog by Tara West which you can find here.  This is such a fun, Kindergarten blog!  I am actually mad that I have over looked it in the past.  Tara has such wonderful quality items from her TpT store and bright, colorful, engaging ideas and products.

Some of my favorites include of course the Fabulous Dollar Finds, which includes great ideas for common products you would find at the Dollar Tree or any Dollar store really.  I also love the following Common Core posts, Word Work, Math Centers, and Writing activities.  These really are just a handful of posts and ideas I am in love with.  You really should check out her blog and get inspired like me.  Let me know what you think or if you already are aware of this fun blog.

Erin

10 Things I have learned from Teaching

10 Things I have learned from Teaching

1.  I know more about parents then I want to know.  Usually from my students who like to share every detail of their home lives but sometimes from those parents that think it is ok to share their VERY personal lives with me....when I am in the middle of teaching.

2.  You can't make everyone happy, especially parents.  So just do your best to be fair and fun.

3.  Kids love your singing voice, even when NO ONE else does. ; )

4.  Words can hurt; a lot.  Choose your words wisely and teach them to as well.

5.  No matter what you will feel like a family and it is always hard to say goodbye at the end of the year.

6.  It is ok to tell them you don't have an answer or if you make a mistake.  We are only human.

7.  They will remember EVERYTHING you tell them....except the important things like letter sounds that you have worked on for weeks at a time.  

8.  Boredom = Trouble.

9.  You can NEVER be too prepared.

10.  Expect the Unexpected!  

Reached My Goal Buttons!

So a few weeks back I cam across these really cute buttons on Pinterest.  What else would I be doing in the summer?
Goal Buttons, I thought they were very cute, and what a fabulous idea for my students to show off what they have learned.  It makes a big difference when they can show off what they have learned and when other teachers can say wow!  Someone besides me ; ) .  So I decided to make my own version.  Here goes-

So what do you think??  I love them.  All you need is some fun scrapbook paper, and some make your own button sets.  I got both at Michael's.  I typed up my saying and printed on regular paper.  I might add some star stickers too, but haven't decided yet.  You can make them to go with any theme or color scheme.  I thought this cute shiny paper was fun, and would stand out.  I so want to make more now.  The best part is I got the paper on clearance, it was only .70 cents!  The buttons came four to a pack and cost $3.  Not bad!

Eddie the Squirrel

So it has been a little while since I have posted.  I have been on a short vacation to Texas, and of course the holiday.  Busy, busy.  However, some fun has occurred.  One, Aidan started skateboarding lessons, and both Kenna and Aidan both took swim lessons and will continue the next level next week.

One exciting thing though was that we founds Eddie the Squirrel!  Thats right, earlier in the week, Aidan found the little guy in our front yard, while all the kids were out playing and moms chatted.  Well, he must of fallen out of the big tree in front of my house.  He still has his umbilical cord, and no hair.  We were leaving the next day for our trip and so my friend Leslye said she would care for it.

Of course she fell in love!  It is kinda ugly but in the most cute way!  Just take a look!

Leslye has taken care of him the rest of the week, even waking in the middle of the night to feed him and clean him up!  She is amazing ; )  So when she had to work today of course I said I would Squirrel sit!  He has been amazing and I wish I could have it all recorded to share with my students.  K and A are in love and so is the hubby.  He is kind of hard not to love.  He is strong and resilient and just so sweet.  Here is a more recent picture.

He's grown some hair on his nose and top of his ears.  I will be keeping him tonight to give Leslye a little break.  You know how us moms need a break sometimes.  ; )  

Dinosaurs!!

Hi friends,

I have been working on some new products for my TpT store and have decided on making whole units.  I make sure that my students do one whole group lesson in each subject area daily and of course there are centers, journaling, groups etc...

I just finished a unit on Dinosaurs...what child doesn't find Dinosaurs interesting??  Even I love them!  The new Dinosaur Unit which includes 5 literacy and 5 math activities.  The subjects covered are:

Literacy
Describing, Creative writing, Can, Have Are chart, Sight Word Coloring and Word fun for stamping or writing.

Math
Graphing, Adding with dice, Fill in the missing numbers 1-30, Letter count and which one is greater.

Here is a link.

Art Night

This past school year I switched schools.  It was by choice, and although the last school I was at was like "home" to me I was not happy there.  It was not my co workers by any means.  They were amazing and I miss them all the time.  My principle however was not the type of person I wanted to work for and lets just leave it at that.

I switched to another school in my district and although the co workers are not as close, (many are very friendly and amazing but, it is not the same as my previous school) I absolutely love the principle.  She is exactly what I was looking for.

As with all schools there are many different activities to raise money, or increase community/family involvement.  One thing my new school does is Art Night.  Each class makes a piece of art as a whole that are auctioned off and each child makes their own personal piece that is sold for $5 each.  Parents can make their purchase early so that they are guaranteed their child's work.  It is a great way to open our school to families and show our artistic skills.  We also have local artists come and demonstrate, or make things.  We also have some fun activities for the kids and of course food.

Each art project has to be what the teacher in charge called REAL art....not something like crayons and paper drawing.  I found my inspiration on Pinterest...go figure.  Here is what I found.

I came from a website called "Do Small Things With Love"  and you can check them out here.  I loved the idea of the washers as flowers and I knew that my kids could do this.  I decided to prime my washers and then allow them to paint them with acrylics instead of using paper and mod podging them. I also decided to paint the stems instead of using ribbon.  My changes really had nothing to do with the product but with time I had to use...classroom time.  Here is a picture of my finished products.  It is our class piece and some of the individual pieces.  

Our class project.  All of them helped in some way to create this piece. 

Here are our individual pieces.  I just love them!!  

All in all it was a huge success!  I can not wait till next year I already have some ideas.  You can also check out my Pinterest board of Arts and Crafts here.

So many things have happened since November and it is hard to know where to begin.  I love to make this blog about my classroom, teaching and my career.  But, although it is my passion I have more then one....Who says you can only have one passion?  My children and husband are my #1 passion... they are what keeps me going, who make me me.  I talk about them with my students just like my students talk with me about their families.
One thing my children do that is a large part of our lives is Scouts.  My daughter who is in 5th grade, she has been in Girl Scouts since Kindergarten and I have been the leader since 1st grade.  My son has been in Scouts since 1st grade and loves it.  One part of our Boy Scout pack is a Father/Son Bake off.  The two years he has participated he has won some kind of trophy.  He won his first year for most weird cake (a spider cake...Black Widow) and his second year he won for 3rd place in his den.  Here are his cake from this year. I unfortunately can not find the picture of the Spider cake.

His theme was camping, and I just love it.  He made the cake, I just watched over him and turned the oven on.  I added the chocolate icing and river of blue icing but, he did the rest.  I just love it!

Really? November????

Wow Friends!

Did I really not post since NOVEMBER?  It can not be.  All it takes is one sickness, then children sick, then holidays, then work, then more work, more kids, more EVERYTHING, to stop me from blogging.  Very sad.  I have got to get back in the groove and catch up on all the amazing fun my class had since the late fall.  So be on the look out and also PLEASE forgive me for taking so long to catch up.
Love, : O  erin