'Mani" Thanks! A great end of year gift for volunteers!

Happy almost summer everyone! Hope that you are making it through these last few days or weeks! I have 6 days left with kiddos and then 2 more days to pack up my teacher life for 2 months! I really hate packing!! 

Packing is just as bad as unpacking! Why oh why must I pack up?? I mean, I know why but I still don't like it! 

So, another year has gone and I wanted to find a cute and fun (also not bank breaking!!) way to thank my sweet volunteers who have helped me this year. So I decided to give them a jar of "mani" thanks! 

All you need is a :

*pint size mason jar (right now Michaels has them for $1! Plus if you show your teacher ID, you get 15% off!)

*mini-manicure items (I also found mine at Michaels)

*nail polish (your choice of colour)

*something extra if you want and it can fit in the jar

I found the nail polish and cooling eye masks at TJ Maxx! They have great spa and beauty items for less. I had some extra room so I put some in there. You can add whatever you like though. 

I placed all the items in the mason jar and added my label and done! It's super cute and easy to make. 

You can download the labels for FREE! Click on the picture to download a copy. It is editable. 

Hope this helps make it easier for you! I'm excited to give this to my volunteers! Happy end of the school year friends! 

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! :-) 

Stressed and other randomness...

Do you Facebook? Have you followed me on FB yet? No?? Well, click on the above to take you to my blog's Facebook page and like it! I do post and will start posting more now that I will have more time. I do post more on my personal account (you can friend me there, too! Although I do warn you, I am more candid in my personal page but it's me!) but you will see a posting about my current obsession (it occurs, oh-- about every few months or weeks, depending on when the mood strikes me) with 

Yes, it's that time of year where I am stressed to the max with end of the year paperwork, final projects that I am trying to *sneak* in and finish, and cleaning out my room!!! Please tell me you are in the same boat! The worst part is having to pack up my room ALL. OVER.AGAIN when I.JUST.MOVED.IN this year! Yes, I have to pack up my bookcases, metal cabinets and put them all in boxes and stack them on the shelves or filing cabinets so my floors can be waxed, cleaned, etc... It was just so nice in my old room where I could still pack up a few boxes and place my furniture on the carpet. My new room (which is smaller, by the way, and is already packed to the hilt with everything under the sun) has to be all packed in our ONE (yes, I said ONE) post planning day-- never mind all the other paper work we have to do! So, I am not sure one jar of Nutella will get me through this! LOL! So, I have slowly but surely been getting my paperwork done so I don't have to buy the megasize jar of Nutella as the deadlines approach. How many days do you have for post planning and do you do the same things I do--reading and math cards, pinks and blues, CUM folders, report cards (obviously!), etc..? 

In other randomness, this weekend we celebrate Memorial Day! Thank you to all that have served or are serving! It was a relaxing weekend with the family. We had some friends over and Gabriel had been talking about making smores because that's what they do at camp. I look over at my son and tell him that he has never been camping because Asian people never camp! I dare you-- look in any camp site, you will not find an Asian family there or any Asian family depicted in a Gander Mountain catalog because we just don't camp! LOL! So anyway... here we are making smores the only way I know how: 

It was fun! We have the best times together!!! Love my friends and family!! I am especially looking forward to my girls weekend at the beach after school ends!!! Cannot wait! It is always fun to be with my first grade girls. They are my family, too! Love them so much.

Speaking of first grade, this week we will be working out of my Surf's Up unit! If you haven't picked it up yet, you still can from TPT! Click on the picture to take you there!

I just printed out my centers from my unit and cannot wait! All I have to say is CUTENESS!! There is a writing craftivity for "How to Build a Sandcastle".  And so much more!! 

Here is a cute video to go with it:

Only 6 more days left for me!! How many for you? 

Is Summer Here Yet??

Who's ready for summer? I am! These last few weeks are going to fly by!! At my school we always send home a summer packet of little activities for students to do over the summer. We include the sight words for this year and next year as well as some suggestions for sight word games and internet sites to visit. 

I have uploaded a simple version of ours for you to download. It is primarily for a first to second grade transition. I hope you find it useful as we move into these last few weeks of school. 14 more days as of today!! 

I am still working on my sharks mini-unit. It should be done by the weekend. My kids are so excited for shark week. If you are still looking for a fun beach/surf theme for centers, please take a look at my Surf's Up unit on TPT! There are a week's worth of centers for you to use! 

As always, enjoy the rest of your week!