Spring Break And The Living Is Easy

I kicked off my spring break with a 30th birthday She-Bang! A group of close friends and I headed to the city to have dinner at The Stinking Rose.  Peeeee yew!  I am a HUGE garlic lover but honestly, this place was overkill.  We reeked coming out of the restaurant and I think my pours are still eau de garlic. 

 

Check me out in my large Garlic Birthday Hat!  I need to get one of these for my classroom.  Clearly my boyfriend, Mr. Winemaker, is shocked and appalled by the sheer monstrosity-ness of the hat. 

Other than birthday partying it up, I have been hanging out at home with you know who...  the ever feisty, sleepy, best kindergarten teacher companion EVER...Ms. Lulu Rose.  Feel free to skip over this part if you are not a cat person.

 Peek a boo...I am squishy.

 Morning glory

I have been tending to my garden this break.  I am a HUGE succulent lover!  Here is one of my most prized beauties.

And now on to school related stuff.  Mother's Day will be here before we know it. This is the ultimate in Mother's Day cuteness!  If you would like to receive this 12 page Mother's Day pack as a freebie, please:

-Leave a comment about a favorite Mother's Day memory
-Join TWO out of these three choices.  Join my blog, join my Pinterest page, or join My Teacher Pay Teacher Shop.

When I receive your Mother's Day Memory and the two sites that you have joined, I will email the freebie to you within a week!  Cheers!

Integrated Community Unit A Must See Palooza and Giveaway!!!

Keep the excitement coming! This Community Unit hits the mark!  Take  an adventure into the community through writing, reading, and math.  Your students will be a buzz with community ideas.  The creative, game centers include a center for math, for syllable practice, short vowel sounds, rhyming words and more!  Great for PreK-1st.

Drum Roll Please.......MY FIRST GIVEAWAY!!!! 

The first, lucky FIVE people who: 

-Mention this Community Unit AND mention my blog on THEIR blog (with a link back to my blog or my TPT or Teachers Notebook Store) will receive the unit for FREE.  Make sure you leave me a comment with a link to your blog and let me know how you spread the word in the blogging COMMUNITY!  

You will receive the Free Community Unit within a week!  Thank you for your continued support and encouragement.  I love this unit with all my heart and just like cooking a good meal there is a lot of love cooked in to this tasty unit sure to Sprinkle Teaching Magic in your classroom!

A Little Of This And A Little Of That

Today was filled with a little of this and a little of that.  Here is a photo journey through some of our recent classroom hippity hoppenings. 

Our bunny bags turned out pretty dang cute.  The kids are excited to fill them up tomorrow with the jelly beans from jelly bean graphing AND the eggs from the sight word egg hunt.  

These cute books can be found in my Teachers Notebook and TPT store just click HERE!

Every year when the Farm Unit rolls around I melt for the story Mrs. Wishy-Washy.  I don't know who gets a bigger kick out of saying, "wishy-washy, wishy-washy"  me or the kids!?!?!  For the activity below students picked any animal they would like to bathe.  Wow, we had some pretty funny animals to wash in the bathtub, a giraffe, stingray, electric eel, even my cat LuLu was chosen to be thrown in the bath.  Mewowzers!  Students wrote the steps they would take to wash their animal.  (The How To Wash An Animal sheet is in my Farm Unit on TPT and Teacher's Notebook)  Once students were done writing their steps; I cut each step and staple the pages in order to the front of the bathtub.

Up close and personal.  Check out those little fingers holding on to the side of the tub.  Precious.

I took dictation for this little friend.  I think her idea is brilliant and quite necessary.  Does anyone else check their toilette before going to the bathroom to see if there is a snake or is it just me?  I saw some creepy Animal Planet clip of a snake getting loose and then coming up someone's plumbing system and I just about lost it!!!  Now I check every. single. time!  Luckily, this snake looks cute and non-threatening.

Peek-a-boo; I see you little beaver.

While I was typing this post, I looked at my little cute Easter decorations I have set up on my kitchen table.  I just had to snap a pic and share.  My little cottage may be small but there is always room for table decorations to spruce a place up.  Believe it or not most of these finds were from TJ Maxx HomeGoods (that store is lethal for a budget) and GOODWILL!  The Easter basket is for my honey bunny boyfriend... let's call him for blog purposes Mr. Wine Maker (yes, he is a wine maker, and yes, if you ever need tips on the perfect wine to pair with anything OR you need the ULTIMATE California Wine Country itinerary never hesitate to shoot me an email and I will consult with him!)  Anyways... we are in a long distance relationship, and I miss him greatly during the week. He is driving up tonight for my BIRTHDAY weekend.  Tomorrow he will head to kindergarten, KB classroom with me for kindy shenanigans.  Stay tuned.........

Kindergarten Teamwork

After a fun field trip to the farm, lots of farm stories and songs, exposure to farm vocabulary with a special farm read the room,  and MUCH more my kindy cuties were ready for a farm challenge.  Today they worked in teams to create farm animal posters.  Students had to take turns drawing and outlining their farm animal.  The sheep group worked together to glue on cotton balls.  The cow group worked together to trace hand print cow spots.  The chicken group cut out eggs.  The pig group used paint and fingers to make a very muddy pig!  Next, students labeled parts of the farm animal and traced words in marker.  Finally, each child wrote a one sentence fact.  When the poster was complete team members proudly signed their name and gave hi-fives!  I was lucky and had one parent facilitate each group.   I walked around coaching students on team work skills (taking turns, using words to solve problems, cooperating, brainstorming, giving each other praise and compliments etc)  Each group is now an expert on their specific farm animal and will teach facts to classmates.  Classmates will fill in the Down On  The Farm graphic organizer with the facts they learn. (The graphic organizer can be found in my Farm Unit on Teachers Pay Teachers or Teachers Notebook) 

In progress...

The final product!!!!  

I had no idea that pigs go CRAZY for apples!  There is always something new to learn in kinder!

Don't Judge A Classroom By Its Cover

I often feel that teachers are expected to be super human.  We need to have a smile on our face, calm voice, mapped out curriculum, current on the latest teaching practices, therapists to all, be fun, calm, data driven, technology gurus, curriculum creators and innovators and much MUCH more.  A lot of teachers I know are type A.  We are passionate and driven and will challenge ourselves to be the best even if it means sacrificing our sleep, weight, stress level and quality time on the weekends.  Sites like Pinterest and teaching blogs  further challenge us into the super human educator realm.  I try my darndest to do it all and do it all with 100% of my effort.    Don't get me wrong; I love it all and get so inspired, but sometimes I catch myself in a comparison trap.  I may think, that teacher really has it together; I wish I could be as organized as she is.  I will look at my pins on Pinterest and want to do it ALL and think I am not doing enough!  I will look at teaching blogs and do the same.  Wow she always does the cutest activities, look at her classroom; everything looks neat and tidy.  HAULT!!!!! Nothing is perfect and this thinking is unproductive. Pinterest, teaching blogs, a beautiful classroom, a photo of a classroom art project where every child's art is the same and looks cloned, a new curriculum idea are all fabulous, inspiring, and amazing....buuuuuuut some days a teacher needs to stop and honor her very own humanness!!!!  Humanness is endearing and beautifully imperfect.  How are we supposed to teach our students to make mistakes, have balance, embrace their imperfections, and not be cookie cutter, if we as educators push ourselves too hard and try to be perfect.  Yikes, this post may have become a bit preachy and speechy, but I needed to remind myself of this today.

Here my classroom is in all its shiny glory.  Loving my cute little table all spruced up for spring.  See that door in the back of the photo with the spring poster on it???? Lurking behind that door is my humanness and I am  PROUD OF IT!  Drum roll please....

Ta Da!!!

Yes,  yes my dear teacher friends this is my closet and I am proud of it!  I moved in to my current classroom a week before school started.  This is the culmination of 5 classroom moves in 6 years.  All the stuff that didn't quite find a way to be put away has made a home here.  My thoughts are---- I can't walk into the closet, so I can't clean it.  I open the door thinking I will be ambitious and clean it out and then just as that productivity sinks in, the door is quickly shut and I figure I will probably move again this year so why not just hold off.  When I see this closet in real life I cringe and beat myself up, but seeing this picture above makes me smile and even chuckle a bit.  I'm a bit goofy, a bit quirky, a bit messy, a bit of a procrastinator, but gosh darn it; that's what makes me human.  This teacher isn't waiting for Superman and super human teaching powers; I am happy to just be me and sprinkle teaching magic every chance I get!  

Earth Day Visors

This song comes to mind when I think of Earth Day...

Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Where did all the blue sky go?
Poison is the wind that blows
From the north, east, south, and sea
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Oil wasted on the oceans and upon our seas
Fish full of mercury
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
No, no
Radiation in the ground and in the sky
Animals and birds who live nearby are dying
Oh, mercy mercy me
Oh, things ain't what they used to be
What about this overcrowded land?
How much more abuse from man can you stand?

Marvin Gaye

_____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  _____  

My kindy cuties have become quite the tree, wood/paper,  and animal experts.  Thank you FOSS science!  There is no doubt they are very passionate about everything and anything that has to do with the Earth and keeping her a clean, green, beautiful, fighting machine!  Today we made our  'I Am A Friend of the Earth' visors.  Students will proudly wear these visors throughout the month of April as we garden, recycle, pick up trash around the school, and walk in the Walk-A-Thon.

You can find this visor reproducible and more Earth Day activities in my Teachers Pay Teachers Shop! Just click on the image above! 

Friday Farm Frenzy Fun

Happy Friday!  Come take a photo journey of Farm Unit FUN in our classroom this week!

Down On The Farm Class Field Trip book!

A peek at the pages inside...

My students LOVE making these sight word books (pictured below) and bringing them home to read to their families!  This particular sight word book had a fun riddle and rhyming component.  

Beginning Stages Of The Book:

Ready To Cut The Book Out:

A Class Set of Finished Farm Sight Word Book Masterpieces!!!!:

Farm and science vocabulary cards were taped all over the room.  Students went on a Farm Read The Room hunt to see how many they could find! 

Labeling Farm Animals

Gotta love the adorable ear spelling!  Too cute!

Building A Farm Inside The Classroom

Birds Eye View Of The Farm In Progress

Our favorite farm stories helped give us ideas for art we created at the Friday Fun art center!

 I enjoy sitting down with my kinder cuties and working right along side them!  There is something very calming and meditative about doing art work with kids.  Here is my farm art creation!  

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.  If you are interested in any of these activities check out A Bushel Of Farm Academic Fun in my Teachers Notebook store!  ONE MORE WEEK AND I TURN 30!!!!  Oh NOOOOOOOOOO!!!