MOA here I come!

Hello! Today I am spending the day here:

And while the 3 boys/men in my life go to places like the Apple Store, Best Buy, and Game Stop, I will be perfectly content for hours browsing here:

at Archivers...looking at paper, stickers, stamps, ink and dies! Ahhhh! I am feeling the time crunch to START my son's high school scrapbook...he's a junior.  I feel good about having the K-8 years scrapped for him...I'm just stuck on what to do for the high school book. I am debating whether or not to go with school colors as the theme to his book...or just school themed pages in general; and he's a runner (CC and track) and there are not many papers and stickers out there for those sports...so we'll see what today brings! Hope you have a great day, too, doing something you enjoy!

Classroom Update for January

Hello! I went to my classroom for a few hours this morning to make the switch from December to January. There's always so much to get done....I didn't accomplish everything on my "to-do" list, but feel good about it none the less.  (At least while I was working in my classroom,  I wasn't snacking all morning...like I have been at home!!)  Here are a few pictures of my room...

I have 6 of these pretty blue snowflakes hanging from the ceiling. I bought them at the Dollar Tree several years ago.  Ironically, I live in southern MN and we don't have even one single flake of snow on the ground!! This was our first "brown" Christmas since 2006 and today it's in the 40's. But hey, I am not complaining, because even though I live here, I do not like the COLD!

I put these snowmen on the door for "Read the Room." Each one has just the item in the sentence colored. These were super simple to make. I also have a smaller version for the children to color the items and fill in the color words. They can choose their own colors; they do not have to match the posters.

I made a "label the snowman" activity for my writing center...I saw this in December done with a Santa picture and thought it'd be great for January done with a snowman.

I have this one hanging up for the children to use as a model and blank pages in the writing area.

I have seen SO MANY great literacy ideas on Pinterest...like this:

 and this:

I've been working to create similar activities, but adapted them to meet my students' needs...so I am not going to share something that isn't my own idea; these teachers deserve the credit!! Thought you might be inspired by them, too.  I just LOVE all of the creativity and inspiration out there!! Thanks for checking in. Enjoy your day!

Cute January Pins

Hello! I hope everyone enjoyed Christmas and can relax over the next few days before heading back to school. My family and I had a wonderful holiday, blessed with lots of family time and good food. : ) I am taking a break from school things...at least I did for a bit...by baking and scrapbooking. I have, however, been Pinning some awesome ideas for January. Here are a few winter projects I am looking forward to doing...

Gotta love Pinterest!!! I've been working on a couple of winter printables of my own...here is an activity sheet I made to help my class practice printing lowercase letters.

 Thanks for checking in and have a great day!

How many cookies tall are you?

We did a few fun gingerbread activities over the past couple of weeks. We read The Gingerbread Boy and Gingerfriends (Jan Brett).  Here a few pictures of our activities:

Beginning sounds practice: Mrs. Lee style!!

Math activity: add the correct number of buttons

How many gingerbread cookies tall are you?

The children could measure "how many gingerbread cookies tall" they were (with help from a friend) and then complete the response sheet by coloring in the correct number of cookies and filling in their name. I printed out pictures of them to glue on the sheet, too.

ONE more day!

Good evening! Whew...just one more day until Christmas break. I am looking forward to it and I know many of you can relate!! We had our Christmas program today and it was beautiful; we do 2 performances for parents/families...one at 9 a.m. and the other at 1:30 p.m. So, basically, we don't do much else on program day!!! Yesterday we finished our calendar gifts. They turned out great! We wrapped them and they went home in backpacks. Hopefully, they are safe and sound under everyone's Christmas tree. Here are photos of each month and the cover:

The cover and January (children filled in their last name on the blank line.)

February and March

April and May

June and July

 

August and September

October and November

December

 

 

That's a lot of hand prints! I like this calendar because it was simple; everything was on one page and there was no extra gluing involved. I created a different cover, but all of the originals can be found here. I am so grateful for teachers who share!! This made our project pretty stress free...although if I do it again next year, I may get an earlier start.  We started when we got back after Thanksgiving break. That can be cutting it a little close, especially if you have children who are sick and need to make up pages. I hope the families like them. : ) Thanks for checking in and if you have one or two more days of school this week...hang in there!

Hope I am doing this right...

Happy Sunday! So...being rather new to all of this...I hope I am doing this right. I was nominated for this award by Ms. Lopez from Coloring Outside the Lines.  This award is for newbies, and its goal is to spotlight up-and-coming blogs with less than 200 followers. If awarded, you must:

♥ copy and paste the award on your blog

♥ thank the giver and link back to them

♥ reveal YOUR top five picks and leave a comment letting them know

THANK YOU, Ms. Lopez, for nominating my blog!

Here are my picks :

Miss Chamblee's Kinderfriends

The Kindergarten Chick

Krazy in Kindergarten

Crayons & Curls

Mrs. Bremer's Kindergarten

What a fun way to visit new sites and get to know what other teachers are doing...I love seeing all of the creativity out there!!

Rudolph...

Hello! I couldn't resist using the "grow a Rudolph" this month. We put it in water on Monday...he's actually grown quite a bit since then...and the children are very excited to check his progress every morning. I can't help but feel a little guilty looking at him...he looks like he's trapped in the jar of water!!!  : ) Thanks for checking in...hope your days before Christmas are going well.