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