Happy New Year SALE!!!

I just wanted to thank you all for a fabulous year! I have appreciated all of the support you have given me. To show my gratitude, I am throwing a sale in my shop for the next two days. Best wishes for a healthy and happy year in 2015!!

We made it to Christmas Break! Phew!

I am so glad to be on break for two entire weeks!!! I need the R & R for sure! Here is how I closed up the classroom before we left for vacation....

Gifts:

I found this cute little number on Pinterest. Seriously, I love that place for great ideas. I made these for all of the aides and special teachers that interact with my son in our building.

I couldn't forget my own little kinder darlings. They each got a special book with candy cane to take home. 

Craftivity:

I loved how these came out! I don't like when we return from the holiday break and Christmas stuff is still hanging up. I am one of those people that takes the tree down as soon as we have cleaned up all of the wrappings from Christmas day. So needless to say, I am the exact same way in the classroom. LOL! We winterized our writing wall and decorations. These snow globes are hanging on our wall!

These little numbers were taken down and sent home but the kids had a great time with them! We made 

Writing:
Writing is a huge component in our classroom and the kiddos rely on our writing station from morning until afternoon. I try to switch it up as much as possible. We do a daily write the room with thematic words that are also posted on our station wall. When I am ready to set up a new unit, I pass out the cards to the kids. They try to write a sentence with that word before posting it somewhere in the classroom for their peers to find.  I love the excitement I hear when I tell them it is time to do a switcheroo!

 We all have at least one friend in the class that is a spectacular writer. I just adore this guy's writing. He does such a super job that it is difficult for me at times to keep him challenged in this area! He did make me laugh when he asked why I don't put ALL of his papers on our wall of fame =)

Getting things ready to share with my kiddos in the New Year! Hope you are having a wonderful holiday season!

December goodies!

Hello!

I have been so busy during this holiday season that I have't had time to update my blog but I have TONS to share. A little bit of personal with lots of classroom goodies =)

My boys started in my school district this year and I just love it. Both of them are still adjusting with social and academic changes but I love to see them smile in school. My oldest joined the band in middle school and it definitely is the bright spot to his day. It was exciting to see him play in his first concert!

We needed to get our room updated for the holiday season and created our very own elves. They cam out way too big so I just changed the venue from the bulletin board to the hallway. I will have to tweak this one a bit for next time. LOL! When we were part time Kinders, I always liked when I had the opportunity to fix things when I had to do them the second time. There are no dress rehearsals anymore =)

Well, since the hallways was looking so festive, I couldn't forget our door. Since those little elves took quite some time to complete, I needed something a little simpler for the door. I was going to do a reindeer but the snowman can stay up until April in Ohio. LOL!

I have been really working on completing assessments for our upcoming report cards. My kiddos are having a hard time remembering their 3d shapes so I changed our table assignments (which were previously numbers) to all of the 3d figures with samples. I use these to line them up so I hope it sticks like glue this time around!

Along those math lines, one of our assessments is ordering items by length. We made our Christmas trees from shortest to longest strips and used hole punchers to create the ornaments. Great for those fine motor skills!

Another assessment is spelling our sight words and writing our sounds. I made up this little ditty trying to give them some clues with the puzzle pieces. I think they were in shock when I told them what we were going to be doing. LOL! I had them get writing boards and spread around the room while I conducted the test. They did a fantastic job for the first time. Stapled those to all of the other assessments we have been doing.

With all of this work, we needed a few brain breaks to give us time to refocus. There are some cute holiday brain breaks on YouTube right now. The fan favorite was definitely the one with Santa!

Part of our reading program, Wonders, has the kids learning quite a bit of grammar. We have been working on adjectives recently. The kids and I generated some ideas of adjectives that would be used to describe the perfect reindeer. We then wrote letters to Santa using some of those adjectives in telling him why we would be the best reindeer for him. I love their creativity!

 We are already knee deep in cold and flu season here in Ohio. Unfortunately, my youngest was not feeling well and I had to call in reinforcement. Sometimes, I think it is easier to just be here than get ready for a sub =)

Just one more week until the holiday break. We can do it!