It's the End of the Year--- and We Know It!

Wow! Time surely goes by fast! I have not been much of a blogger this year. My class and family life just took a toll on me this year! Sometimes you just have a take a step back and take care of what is most important to you! I hope to be back more next year and put more life into my blog and share with you the ideas that I have! The pictures are all there on my phone and the posts are written in my head---- BUT! They never made it to the blog! *sigh* There's always this summer and next year! 

Hope you all are soon coming close to the end! This is my last week of school. We have been so busy with end of the year performances. My 2nd grader had a performance and my little kinder did, too! Both were amazing and I am so glad that we were there to watch it! 

There's my Gabriel (the short asian one! lol!) in the front! 

Getting the "Smarties" Award for knowing fun little facts! It will win him big in Jeopardy one day! 

My Aidan after his ocean performance! His class was all hermit crabs! They were so cute. We heard ocean songs NON-STOP for weeks. We are still hearing them! 

I am also busy cleaning out and packing up my classroom. I know we all do this but this is a dreaded task for me because I am slow. It takes me forever to pack it up. I have to admit that I also putz around and am not organized in my packing. You will often find little piles of where I've been. I partially have ADD and I like to re-organize as I go. That could have something to do with my slowness. Plus, my room is being used for summer school so I am being extra careful in my pack-up so I remember where I place things. 

In my pack up, I found I had so many notebooks! I mean, tons of them that I didn't use! Every year I give my students a notebook over the summer to write so they don't slide over the summer because as we all know the summer slide is for real! Yet, I wasn't really giving them or their parents too much guidance. 

I created this cute little pack for all those journals! 

You can click {HERE} to check them out! 

I wanted them to be fun, easy, and low prep! Something kids and parents could do! 

I have to laugh! My little one's prompt was about chores. He wrote, "I like to feed my cat. I do not like to scoop cat litter." Hahaha!

I hope to get these printed and back from copy center by Tuesday so I can send them home in their beach buckets. I also send home a summer calendar as well as helpful links and logins to the various programs our county has purchased for us. 

Hope you all have a great week! It's almost the end of the year and we ALL know it! :-) 

Rockin' Out with Jack Hartmann and Up and Away with Balloons!

Not because I had to come back from Spring Break today necessarily, but we had some exciting things happen in our classroom today!! Of course, learning everyday is exciting; but it is not everyday that Jack Hartmann comes to your school to sing and dance with you!  Our kids (K-2) had such a great time singing and dancing with him. 

Getting ready to sing the Hip Hop Tooty Ta Song! You MUST do this dance with your class. We always do this dance with some soul and funk in it! They LOVE it! Click here to watch it!

Even some of our teachers got into it!!! 

Look who I see! Leigh, The Applicious Teacher, got called up on stage to do the Chicken Count! How fun! 

He really puts on a great show and our kids were up and dancing. He was even nice enough to take some pictures with us! 

Please visit Jack on his website or youtube channel and see all the great songs he has for kids! I really love his math and movement songs. I did see that he has one for science! Super exited to get that one!

Today was also a gorgeous Florida day! Of course it was because we are back from Spring Break (last week when I was on break it was cold and rainy!) and a great day to start my creative writing project for:

I took a writing workshop with Melissa Forney once and one thing (of the many wonderful things she shared with us about writing!) that I really came away with from her and writing with young students is that they need to draw on their experiences. Sometimes we ask kids to write about somethings and they simply can't because they've never done that before! How can you write about a trip to the beach if you've never been there?? Good point, right? So, in her workshop she discussed making a shared experience with young writers to help them in their writing process. So, I came up with this project that I shared with you in a previous post! 

I took some Mylar balloons from the Dollar Tree (the regular rubbery ones don't work as well and don't last is the best way I can describe it) and I tied a small note to the ribbon. If you downloaded the note, please re-download as the balloons I used before were huge and the ones I used this time around were smaller. Use what works for you. Click on the picture to grab it! 

Now, LOOK at all these excited faces after I told them what we were going to do. They each got to hold part of their string as we walked out into the courtyard. They were the cutest "Balloon Gang" ever! Their faces just say it all! Love them! 

I spaced them out in the courtyard and had them huddle around their balloon. They said a little wish for their balloon and on the count of three we LET.THEM.GO!

Going! Going! Going!!!

So, now we wait and see if someone finds them. One year, another teacher did get a response from an airport 30 minutes from where we live. It was found on the tarmac. Pretty cool that it traveled that far. It was totally cool. Now we will be working on the creative part. We've shared an experience and hopefully now, we can write all about it! 

Where did our balloon go?

Who found it?

What did they do with our balloon?

I cannot wait to see their thought processes! We will be writing our final drawings on balloon papers. I really do not have a tracer but you get the idea! I will attach a string to the bottom and have them floating in our room to display them! 

I'll keep you posted throughout the week! 

Our 100th day and let's Study with Ruby!

Hey friends! Hope you all have had a marvelous weekend!! It is finally sunny here in FL! We have had some craziness with rain and cold. It made my kids really 

In the most kid friendly way!! This past week was also way crazy! Friday we had our 100th day! It was such a fun day! 

I found the dress at Goodwill! Can't believe I paid (although I felt good I was helping those through Goodwill) to look old. Even my sweet intern, Mrs. Diaz got into the spirit. Look at my team!! They were fabulous! One teacher borrowed her grandmother's wig and clothes. I couldn't stop laughing. Some of my kids really got into the spirit, too!

Here are some pictures of our day!

Make our 100th Day hat!

Writing 100 words!

Hide the 100

100th Day Portrait

100th Day Glasses

 I loved how their portraits came out! I put them up in the hallway! 

Here are a few that just tickled me!

Check out the hat!!

All blinged out!

Love those eyebrows!

Love her hair and the Mrs. ______!

Is he not the cutest?? (kinda looks like the KCF guy!)

love his wrinkles!

The hat and beard is just too precious!!!

All in all it was a loud and busy day! We got it all in with 10 minutes to spare at the end of the day! I just wanted a Calgon moment at the end of the day! LOL!

This week we are starting off February with Black History and comparing and contrasting Ruby Bridges and Rosa Parks. I admit that sometimes teaching kids who really don't know much about differences can be difficult. I mean, to them everyone is the same. They play with everyone (well, almost!) and everyone is their friend. I almost hate to bring up history's ugly smear of segregation and discrimination but it s our history. I truly love the story of Ruby Bridges! I usually start off with this short clip:

We discuss words like segregation and discrimination and tie that to our learning from MLK. I will be using some simple activities from my little mini-unit that I'd like to share with you!

Click picture to download your FREEBIE!!!

I have included this cute little compare and contrast craftivity:

I cannot wait for my kiddos to work on these this week! 

Well, off to be a domestic goddess now and make dinner! In the meantime, I will be back later this week with another writing idea for you! I hope I can persuade you to come back! LOL! Have a great week!