A First Time!!!

Janelle from Mrs. Janelle's Kindergarten Kingdom has nominated me for my first blogger award. This is a super great way to connect with other bloggers and attract more traffic and followers. I know it's both a blessing and curse to jump through the hoops but I have noticed a boost in the past few days!

Here's the hoops for this award:

1. Thank the blogger who nominated you.  Thank You sent!!

2. Include a link to their site.  Mrs. Janelle's Kindergarten Kingdom

3. Include the award image in your post.  Check!

4. Give 7 random facts about yourself  (see below)

5. Nominate 15 other bloggers for the award. (see below)

6. When nominating, include a link to their site. (see below)
7. Let other bloggers know they've been nominated. (see below)

RANDOM FACTS ABOUT ME!

Random Fact #1:  I was a professional cheerleader during college for our professional Hockey Club in Wichita (the Wichita Wind of the CHL).
Random Fact #2:  I have two tattoos (one on each outer ankle. One is a sunflower and has my hubby's initial in the stem. The other is a Forget Me Not - which has a twin on my best friend Tiffany's ankle)
Random Fact #3: I can curl my tongue. (Hey - it said 'random' facts!!!)
Random Fact #4: I have two houses - one is a condo in Wichita and the other is our lake house on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri.
Random Fact #5: I can mirror write (Writing with both hands at the same time, the same thing except one image is written backwards)

Nominees for the Versatile Blogger award (I really, really tried to find some newbie bloggers with under 100 followers, whew, but it was taking me too long and I wanted to get this posted. Plus you know how it is when you get sucked into blog-land!!!! Anyhoo...I did discover some 'new to me' blogs and my apologies to those of you who are already winners of this award...you are exempt from followin' the rules!!! Oh - and by the way - I KNOW there is a super secret way to make these buttones hot link to the site but damn if I don't have the decoder ring to figure it out!!!! *Sigh* I'm still learning!)

                                                              

Kelly and Kim's Kindergarten Kreations                                 Under the Alphabet Tree 

                

                            

Kindergarten Kindergarten                Mrs. Greene's Kindergarten Korner

                                          

Work Smart Not Hard Teaching Kindergarten                             Sharing Kindergarten

                                                       

                      Love Those Kinders!                       Kindergarten Lifestyle                        

                                     

    Joy of Kindergarten                           Sea Bear's Kindergarten              

                                    

My Kindergarten Kids                                           Kinder Kids Fun

                            

           Kinder Kraziness     

                        

                      

     The Kindergarten Chick                              

    

  Kinderdi

 

There ya go - my friends! Good luck getting sucked into blog land and CONGRATULATIONS to my fellow bloggers!

Yee Haw Shout Out!

A big shout out to Jennifer at Herding Kats who is having a big ol' Texas Giveaway!  Click on her button to check it out!

Is it hot where you are? Ack!!! Twas 102 here in the Ozarks today and forecast is the same for the rest of this week. Stay cool out there!

I'm working up a packet (my first) on The Kissing Hand for the beginning of the year. I'm also thinking of doing a set for The Gingerbread Man beginning of the year to include the Missing Gingerbread Man and hunting throughout the school in order to familiarize our new Kinders to the building and important people. There is a lot of ideas and resources out there for both of these but I thought I would gather the best of the best, add my spin on them and then package them together. Is this something that would be helpful for you? Let me know your thoughts and anything else you might want to see included. It looks like I will have some good 'inside' time this week trying to stay cool!

Teachers as Writers!

I am really trying to become more disciplined about writing. If I ever dream to be a published writer I have to work and train that writing muscle. I stumbled upon a virtual summer writing opportunity hosted by the author Kate Messner.

Check it out here

I was especially intrigued by the mini-lesson this week which utilized a Noun Generator (http://www.wordgenerator.net/noun-generator.php).  What a great idea! My word for the day is Neighbor. I'm working on that now...I will share more later!

Summertime Creations!

Soooo...I think I am finally rested up and recovered. However, my body clock is really screwed up! Must be too many naps...which leads to staying up late ... which leads to sleeping in until 8:30 (gasp!)

I worked some additional hours at school once the kiddos were gone to produce some materials for next year. A huge shout out to our wonderful principal who budgets a big chunk of $$$ for as many teachers as possible can work 25 extra hours for pay to accomplish some of this work. Her only requirement is that 5 hours must be used for building related items (like school wide behavior incentives, bulletin boards, etc.) The rest of the hours can be whatever we need to do! Isn't that awesome!?

My team focused on Math stuff since we have a little more flexibility with our instruction. We are bulking up on resources for our Math Centers and specifically the Common Core and our specific district assessed Progress indicators. One activity that my kids love is the Roll and Record. I created a set (one for each month) so I can grab and go to this center easily.

Grab yours here

One of my goals this summer is to get really good at this blog thing...bear with me!

Congratulations are in order

Congratulations to Can Do Kinders for reaching 1000 followers. Oh my - one day when my little blog grows up, I wanna be just like her. Check out her giveaway in honor of this momentous achievement!

Click here

Spring Break

AHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhh! I love my kids but I also LOVE being away from them! Does that make sense to anyone else? That's what Thanksgiving, Christmas and Spring Break is for --- so we don't kill 'em! And then just about the time you are fed up with them yet again, it's all over...summer comes! Then we start all over again. Absence makes the heart grown fonder!

So Spring Break in the Ozarks. It's the second day this week that I woke up #1 - not knowing where I was, #2 - without an alarm, and #3 - thinking it was Sunday yet again. It is very weird being in town when everyone else is going about their business. The schools here are NOT on Spring Break so the parking lots are full and the buses are out and about. I made my way through two Flea Markets in Branson West. The weird things that Kinder teachers pick up --- a Madeline doll and a large strangely brightly colored Lizard stuffed animal for my reading corner. A whole box of 45s for my brothers' juke box and some candle sticks.

Wal-Mart finds: cute plastic Easter eggs that are pre-decorated. I think I will make up a recording sheet to go along with them for either sight words or CVC words. I will post it up in the next day or so. I am still figuring out this system of blogging and posting and making docs show up here in my post. I still anticipate rolling out the full blog and my TPT and TN stores this summer.

Freebie for St. Patrick's Day

We will be celebrating St. Patrick's Day this week before we have our Spring Break. Since we only have three days with kids this week, I created some special center activities. My kinders are working on building two digit numbers using ten frames. Students will match the Question Card with the appropriate ten frame cards and then with the correct number card. Here is my first freebie for you!

Shamrock Ten Frames

Fabulous at 50!

I'm not gonna lie - I'm taking this Birthday kinda hard. I remember when my parents turned 50 and I thought that was soooooo old. Well - it's not so old anymore! Come to find out - quite a bit went on 50 years ago that was/is pretty significant (of course, besides the fact that I was born in 1962!) So - did you know...

•  Folk music was evolving into protest music thanks to young artists like Bob Dylan and the birth of Surfing music by the Beach Boys grew in popularity meanwhile in England The Beatles record the single "Love Me Do".
• The new hit on TV for that year was "The Beverly Hillbillies" and the first of the James Bond movies "Dr No" was an instant success.
• The First Wal-Mart discount store is opened by by Sam Walton in Bentonville Arkansas.
• Oral Polio Vaccine developed by Albert Sabin given to millions of children to combat Polio.
• Andy Warhol made his famous painting of a can of soup.
• The Dick Van Dyke show was on TV.
• Johnny Carson began as presenter for The Tonight Show.
•  John H. Glenn, Jr., becomes first American to orbit the earth during Friendship 7 orbit.

So I guess 50 isn't so bad (yeah, yeah, keep saying that and it will be so)!

  

Magic!

I am reminded daily of the wonder of five year olds, their imagination and incredible innocence. They think  believe that I am truly magic! Like when I turn on the projector for the Smart Board and they wiggle their fingers to help the image appear - that's magic! Or when we did the rubbings of the penny and the quarter and the images appeared on the paper - that's magic! Or the whole flamingo fiasco (don't ask - I will post it at a later time - suffice it to say that they BELIEVE that a real and true flamingo has hatched from a plastic egg that sat in water for three days and is on the lose somewhere around or near our school!) That's magic! The sheer joy of playing with oobleck and their fascination with the magic of the goo changing from liquid to solid!

Although they wear me out, make my feet hurt, try my patience and utilize my tool box on a daily basis, I am so thankful that I am a magician teacher.

Dr. Seuss

I am on the hunt for all things Seuss!!! I'm trying to get the hyper link to work on TBA's blog but no success yet...I'll keep trying!

Inservice

Shoot me now! Don't get me wrong...I used to lead inservice days...I know they are necessary. I also know there are 'required' topics to cover. But REALLY?!?! I get why my kiddos get all wiggly after sitting for 20 minutes. Thanks to Deb for the math resources and ideas (note to self: Get the Jessica Shurman book Number Sense Routines).

However, ending the day bowling with the peeps made it ALMOST worth the whole day! What a great team building time (even though I barely made it over 50)!

Back with the kiddos tomorrow for a very short three day week and a brand new plan of attack for Reading Small Groups (a.k.a. cramming five small groups into a 90 minute block).

7 a.m. on President's Day

So why is it on a morning that I can sleep in and have no obligations or pressing responsibilities, I wake up at 7 and feel ready for the day? Seven o'clock on a day off feels so different than a work day! All I can say is - thank God for three day weekends! I really think we would be much more effective if we had a three day weekend every week.

I am working on some Math activities for my kiddos to use this spring. I hope to have these complete this week and get those posted up.

The Beginning!

I have begun the blogging journey! I am so excited that I have a presence that represents me. I am still getting things ready to roll out with this site (TPT, Teacher's Notebook). I will start out nice and slow so bear with me!