Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party

I am linking up with Flying into First Grade for the Let's Get Acquainted Linky Party.

 

 

 

 

TOPIC - Skittles Game

 

Here is the code:

Red- Favorite Ice Cream Flavor

Orange- Favorite Memory from College

Yellow- Favorite Sports Team

Green- Favorite Fast Food Place

Purple- Wild Card(Tell anything about yourself)

 

RED

My favorite ice cream flavor is chocolate with peanut butter.  Under the Stars ice cream with peanut butter filled stars in chocolate ice cream with a peanut butter swirl is my FAVORITE!!!  It's my 11 year old sons too!  There was a time when I went to the freezer to get a bowl and ALL the stars were gone.  We had a serious talk. 

  

ORANGE

My favorite memory from college is living in the dorms with my twin sister.  We met so many fun people.  I have so many memories of all the late nights that we stayed up just hanging out with each other.

 

YELLOW
My favorite sports team is the MN Vikings.  I would love them to win several games in one season!  LOL!

 

GREEN
My favorite fast food place is Jimmy Johns.  They are fast (freaky fast).  I can order a sub right after dropping my kids off for recess and it's delivered to school in less than 10 minutes and I still have 10 minutes to eat it! :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

PURPLEWild Card (Random Fact About Me)...  I HATE.HATE.HATE esculators.  I am always afraid they are going to stop or start jerking and suck me in under the steps.  I panic when getting on them.  I feel like I am going to fall.  I wait and wait and wait a little while longer before getting on...as if the perfect moment will come.  IT.NEVER.DOES!

 

My friends thought it was funny when I was scared on the esculator.  Yep...they had to get pictures and make a video out of it...

 

Link up with Flying into First Grade if you would like to join the party!

Sara

Five For Friday...April 12th

Hi!   It's that time of the week again!

 I am linking up Doodle Bugs and her Five For Friday Linky Party.  This week went by extremely fast for me and it was a pretty rough one for me.  One of my kiddos came up to me today and he said that this week was the best week that we've had all year at school.  He said that it was so fun and it went so fast...so despite it being a difficult one for me...I am happy that I was able to make it enjoyable for my kids.  So here goes....

1.  Last weekend I was starting to have pain in my arm.  By Monday it radiated to my shoulder and it was almost unbearable to sit/stand in any position in my classroom.  I went to the doctor after school and was given some pain meds and referred to physical therapy.  I started physical therapy on Thursday.  I was also told that I needed to talk to my human resources.  My doctor and physical therapist think I have a pinched nerve and they want someone to come and set up my desk and chair at school so that I am sitting correctly.  My wrist has been hitting my desk when I am on the computer and they think the nerve is aggravated.  UGH!  My physical therapist taped my arm.  It was the weirdest feeling ever, but I think it is helping!  Thank goodness we can't wear short sleeves yet because my whole upper arm has huge strips of tape on it.

2.  Did I mention I had a difficult week?  Well Tuesday was the icing on the cake.  My parents have owned a farm that my dad got from his dad.  He has lived on it for 40+ years.  Well....there is a project coming through...and my dad is being told that he is losing his land because they are going to build power lines on it.  My dad has fought for them to change the location of the power lines, but the government always wins.  When my parents built their house...they had no trees on their property (80 acres).  My parents planted 100's of trees for shade and privacy. On Tuesday my family went to court to find out what is going to happen to their land.  The power company was given permission to start cutting down all the trees and start digging their posts!!  It's sad!!!  Really sad!  They are building a HUGE power line right by their house.  Now they need to figure out if they are going to lose their house too. 

  This is my dad and boys in my parent's front yard.  When we were little there were no trees there...he planted these all...we planted them together....now they are all going to be gone!!

 My boys in front of the trees...

These trees are going up their drive-way.  They will soon be gone!

It's so sad when you want to make things better for your parents, but there is nothing you can do.  To watch/hear the sadness that they are going through hurts.

 

 

3.  An exciting part of our week was putting our chicken eggs in the incubators on Wednesday.  The kids are soooo excited....and so am I!!!  We did a chicken adoption.  I gave them each a chick that I found on clearance at Target.  I also gave them a journal to record what they do with their chick for the 21 days that they are in charge of it.  They are get to see how much work it is to take care of something for 21 days straight...just like a hen would have to take care of her eggs. 

 The kids were amazed that the eggs were not all white!  They could not believe some were brown, tan, peach and BLUE!!  We compared it to our skin and how we are all different colors but on the inside we are the same. 

 

 

4.  SNOW, SNOW and MORE SNOW = gross!!!!  We got tons more snow on Thursday! I was sure we were going to have another snow day, but that was not the case.  Being that we have been talking about letter writing, we decided to write letters to Mother Nature to persuade her to stop snowing.  We gave reasons why we wanted spring!  Their letters were SOOOO dang cute!!!   

It's pretty, but it's APRIL and it DOES NOT belong here!!!   I think we got 6 more inches. 

 

Our class letter...

In the afternoon we popped popcorn and used our 5 senses to write a poem about it!  They turned out so cute!

Ideas for this project came from....Susan Moran - TGIF.  You can get it here.  Writing-Poetry-for-Primary-Grades.  The kids had so much fun with it!!!  They have really enjoyed writing lots of poems from this pack.  Next week we are going to use our popping popcorn experience and talk about adjectives.  We are going to use ideas from this pack..../Lets-Get-Poppin-with-Adjectives from Babbling Abby.  I know my kids will have fun with it!

 

5.  My biggest downfall is buying new clothes.  Tonight after work I went to Canterbury Downs.  They are having their big spring craft fair.  I am a sucker for craft sales and I go through phases of buying different things there.  It could be decorations for our home, soaps/perfumes/potporri, music, jewelry, soups/dip mixes, etc.  This year I am into clothing...specifically from a place called Scrap-Work Boutique.  They have super cute/trendy clothing and tonight I got some things.  I was hoping to post pictures, but I got some summer things, and my arm is full of tape, so I might have to post pictures later.   Their website is Scrap-Work Boutique.  Their booth was packed and I was lucky enough to find some things before they were gone. 

 

Finally, I am guess I am going to share a 6th thing about my week.  Every night when we lay down for bed, my 9 year old lays with me and asks if he can play a game on my phone.  So, for about 15 minutes or so, we play and I am amazed at how smart he is.  We have been playing 4 Pics 1 Word. 

If you have iPads in your room this would be a wonderful center!!  He is so fast with looking at the pictures and coming up with a word that relates to all of them.  I sometimes have to ask him how he thought of them!  I wish I could hear him thinking.  Try the game if you haven't you'll be addicted.  We are!  I can honestly say that it's the best game/time together that my son spend every night. 

 

I hope you all have a great weekend!  Hopefully my wrist will feel better soon so that I can finish some TPT stuff and freebies that I started working on for the end of the school year.

Sara

 

 

Ah...I had to come back for an update tonight...making it 7 things I shared instead of 5 but, this pic was way too cute to not add on.  We had to get rid of our puppy Maxwell 2 years ago because my son developed allergies to dogs and cats.  My twin sister took him and my boys get to see him often.  She was on vacation last week and we took Maxwell while she was gone.  His 3 day stay ended up going through this week.   My son has been doing well with him too!  NO SIGNS of allegies!!!

I was trying to do school work when I was home on Tuesday, he wanted to play!  I couldn't turn down those sweet, puppy eyes!



 

Five for Friday

Wow!  I can't believe how fast this week went!!  It was my first week back since spring break...and we had kids only 4 days.  We did report cards on Monday. 

I am linking up with Doodle Bugs Teaching to share 5 random things from my week.

#1.  I think Mother Nature is royally mad at someone!  I took my kiddos to the bus today and IT WAS SNOWING (in my mad, screaming voice)!!!  What the heck?  We get really nice 50 degree days and then snow!

Both of these photos were from yesterday.  We were out in the park...playing with NO jackets on!  It was wonderful!

 

And then THIS happened TODAY!!!!  You can see it on my jacket and falling on my son!  The flakes were HUGE!  Luckily it didn't stick.

 

You really can't see them in this picture but the birds were heading south!!!  Poor things...they are so confused.  We need spring now!

 

#2.  Today I took a 1/2 day personal day.  It was my son's program in the morning.  It was fun to be able to see his whole program.  After his program I went to Target, Party City and Kohl's and found some great deals.

I got some Peeps.  When our chicks hatch...we celebrate with a treat! :)
I found some soft chicks and eggs. 
I found cups, cupcake decorations and some butterflies.  Those will be used later.

I found this cute project this week from Ms. Fultz's Corner.  It was so cute!  I will be using the fuzzy chicks and eggs that I found today to do chick adoptions.  What a great idea!!!

#3.  I am so close to having my room ready for our chick hatching unit.  I put some finishing touches on everything in my room.

I put antonyms word cards in my chicks and carrots.  We have been busy dancing around with them to songs and then finding our cards that match.  We do this with compound words, synonyms, antonyms and contractions.  The kids have been really antsy, so I try to get some kind of movement activity in every day.

I have plush chicks that I got at Target last year.  They are sitting in my classroom windows which face the main road that goes by our school.  The kids love seeing the chicks as they drive by.

My chick corner.  I wish I could remember where I got the idea for the NEW LEARNING poster that I have hanging up...but I can't.  I have chick puzzles, fuzzy chicks, and lots of egg matching activities.  I still have to organize and finish hanging signs...but I am almost done.

#4.  I finished a project this week in my room and am so happy that I stumbled into the blogging world.  Since I have started blogging, blog hopping and spending hours on Pinterest, I have gotten so many compliments on many of the projects that I have done.  I feel like I am a brand new teacher and have NOT opened many of my boring files with collections of stuff from 10 years ago!

This week we finished talking about the weather.  We made an adorable book that is filled with weather poems.  The kids made an art project to go with each one. I got the lesson ideas from TLC Lessons.  I ordered the Weather Lessons, Senses Lessons and Farm Animal ones.  They are AMAZING and well worth the money.  Each activity required the kids to follow step by step directions. If they are not listening, their art project shows it.  I didn't take pictures, but you can see samples of the lesson by checking out TLC here...TLC LESSONS..weather.  They are so cute!!!

I said I have found so many wonderful projects on Pinterest...this is one of them  I found it from Tori's Teacher Tips.  It was the first project that I did where I got emails from past & present parents of kids in my class.  I also got emails from parents not even in my class where they commented on how cute they were.  Thanks Tori for posting this!!! 

Snow Globes...

This week I finished this project that I got from Dragonflies In First.  Again, next to the Snow Globes, this has been a big hit with the kids.   We did Cloudy With a Chance of _________ stories.  I didn't get any pictures yet, but they are cute!  You can find them by checking out this weather unit.
 Fabulous-Weather-Unit-Combining-Science-Art-and-Language-Arts

#5. I mentioned last week that we are getting a new reading curriculum.  This week we were told that our district was going to collect all of our old books.  We haven't had a new reading curriculum in all the years that I have been teaching and we have been given things here and there to try.  They are collecting everything so that we are only using the new series. 

This is a bunch of stuff we are getting rid of...it'll be so weird to have a new series and we are looking forward to it.

 

That's about all for this week!  Have a great weekend!

Sara

 

School Lunch

Hi!  I thought I'd just share a funny story with you all today...

Today's school lunch was a good one.  It was REAL roasted chicken with bones, mashed potatoes, rolls.  It looked and smelled amazing. 

While I had lunch duty a 2nd grader said he had a problem.  I asked what it was.  He said that there was a problem with the chicken.  I asked what it was and he said he his sweestest, more alarmed voice, "It has BONES in it!"  I explained that chicken does have bones in it.  He said well, "They forgot to pick them out!"  I asked, "Who?"  He said, "The cooks!"  I laughed so hard.  They laughed too.

Hope you are having a great day!
Sara

End of the Year: Classroom Awards

I cannot believe I am thinking of the end of the school year right now, but I am.  I am working on tons of freebies to share with you soon.  At the end of the year our school always has an award ceremony.   First graders rarely get any of the awards but do sit and support/cheer on/applaud for the older kids in the school.  They may be their siblings, neighbors, friends or buddies.  After the ceremony is over, we go back to our classroom and we have our own awards ceremony where each child gets an award.  It is something specific to them and something that stands out about them or something that they have accomplished throughout the year.  It's a fun time, the kids try to guess who is going to get what award. 

 

You can find my awards here...End-of-the-Year-Classroom-AwardsOur-Own-Celebration

 

If you purchase this pack of awards and don't see an award that you would like, I would be happy to make it for you. 

Sara

Behavior Management Games

Today is Autism Awareness Day.   Every year we work with a new group of kiddos and are never sure what needs each one of them has.  They are all special in different ways and each one brings something with them to our classroom.  I have had the honor and privilage to work with several kids with Autism during the years I have taught and I have enjoyed working with every single one of them.  They bring so much joy to the classroom.  I have learned the importance of routines, schedules and consistency because of many of my students (not only ones with Austim).  We all learn differently and I am glad that I get to learn with all of my students.   Today I have thought of many of the Autistic kids that I have taught and have great memories of all of them.


Today was also my kiddos first day back from spring break.   With them being apart from one another for so long, they all were very chatty and wanted to talk...every.second.they.could.  These are the days when the Take-A-Break chair just doesn't work, or I'd have way too many chairs going.   So, I decided that I needed to do something differently.  We all have behavior management tricks that we use....and today I discovered a new trick that I will be using for the next month.  Being that the chicks are coming, I have tons of chick things in my room.  I have these cute, fuzzy little chicks that I got for no real purpose...only thinking I could use them for something.  I can't even remember where I got them but know I have had them for 2 years.  Today they came in handy.  I told the kids that I would place a chick on their desk if they were quiet.  The chick would watch them do their work.  OH MY GOODNESS...I didn't hear a single peep from one.of.them.  Thank goodness I had a class set of chicks.  This is what our room looked like...

Journal time....every kid had a chick sitting next to them...

Math time....most of the kids had a chick sitting next to them.

There are other games that we play too.  We play Magic Tape.  I will go around and put tape on the back of   kids' chairs of they are working hard.  If they turn around to look to see if they have tape, I take it away.  Also if they talk, I take it back.  At the end of our work time, whoever has tape on the back of their chair gets a sticker.  It works.  They love it.

I also had a parent donate old trophies to me.  When the kids are doing a great job with their work, I will have them get a trophey to sit at their desk.  They love that too.  :)

What are your ideas?  I am always excited to try new ones.

It was a good day to be back with the kids.  I hope you are having a great week or a great spring break.
Sara

Shout Out Linky - A Monthly Party

Today was our first day back from spring break and it went pretty well!  I got tons done as we had no kids today.  It was a report card day. I had done most of mine at home last night so today was dedicated to doing a spring cleaning of my room.  I went through tons of bins and gave away or tossed tons of stuff.  I still have a lot left to do.  My whole motivation to throw and toss things came from one of my shelves breaking.  I had so many old journals, books, notebooks, etc. on it.  When taking stuff off the shelf, I realized that I had stuff sitting in there that I hadn't used for the 6 years I have been in this school.  I will admit, I am a hoarder.  I think it stems from my first year of teaching.  I walked into a completely empty classroom.  Now I could probably furnish 3 classrooms.  Someday I hope to get better at throwing stuff away.

I also had fun setting up my chick corner in my classroom today! Every year I think my parents wonder who I am and how I got so obsessed with chicks.  I grew up on a farm.  When I was little we played in the chicken coops, in sheds and in barns.  We lived outside and lived in the woods, climbing trees, riding our bikes and just having fun.  As I grew older, I became more of a city slicker.   I get so grossed out by things that I used to play in.  Every year I call my dad to ask for tips about hatching chicks, setting up the incubators and just general questions.  I think my mom laughs and really doesn't believe that it is ME calling.  I love, love, love watching my kids faces as the chicks hatch and when they hold them the first time.  Seeing them soooo excited gets me so excited.  I didn't take pictures of my corner today but will when it's all finished.  If you are doing chicks, I have a word wall freebie for you to grab.

You can get it here...Chicks: Word Wall Words

 

 

I am also linking up with Growing Firsties and her Shout Out Linky - A Monthly Party. 

 

The first person that I would like to give a Shout Out to is Sarah Cooley at First Grader...at last!

She was the first blog that I stumbled upon when I had no idea that the blogging world existed!!!! I have gotten so many fantastic ideas from her and thought that maybe I could do a blog too.  Check her out! 

 

You will get some great ideas from her!  I promise!!

 

The next person that I would love to give a shout out to is Michelle at First Grade Best.  Blogging is really intimidating to me yet.  She was the first one that I was brave enough to email with a couple questions that I had.  She was very sweet and responded to me with her answers which helped me a ton!  She's got so many wonderful ideas on her blog too.  :)

 



 

Do you want to link up with a Shout Out Post? Please keep this in mind...Shout Out two bloggers - one with more followers, one with less...link to the specific blog post with the shout outs (not just to your regular blog address)..
Shout Out Linky -

A Monthly Party

co-hosted by Growing Firsties & Teacher to the Core

http://growingfirsties.blogspot.com/

 

I hope you have a wonderful week.

Sara