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)!