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Showing posts from November, 2012

Tuesday Tiredness and Christmas Collaboration!

It's only Tuesday and I'm tired!  Yikes!  Definitely having issues getting back into the swing of things this week, probably due to my oncoming cold and the fact that half my class also has colds/strep/croup/who knows what. So I haven't gotten anything done that I want to, like work on my Winter Centers Pack, plan for December, write an inspiring blog post, change the world, so on and so forth. Actually I'm very bummed because I wanted to make a cute Christmas-themed "Go Shape" game for the kiddos, but didn't get around to it, and so instead this week we are playing with the boring blackline masters from our curriculum.  Alas. In other news, my husband is the BEST husband ever and he got me an early Christmas present! My new laptop and graphics tablet are on the way in the mail and I am SO excited! Hence the excessive capitalization and exclamation points!  I am a little nervous about switching to Windows 8 but I think I'll get the hang of it, and

Some Liebster Love

Speaking of being thankful, I am especially thankful for Irene over at Learning with Mrs. Leeby  and Erica at Blooming in First Grade , who both nominated me for the Liebster Blog Award!  Thank you so much, that was so thoughtful and kind of you!  It means a lot to me and made my Thanksgiving even more special.  :) What is it? The Liebster Award is given by bloggers to up and coming bloggers who have less than 200 followers. It is to show new bloggers that they are appreciated and to help spread the word about new blogs. The Rules: - You must post 11 random things about yourself. - Answer the questions that the nominator set for you. - Create 11 questions for the people you nominate. - Choose 11 blogs you love (with less than 200 followers) and link them in your post. - No tag back (but please leave me a comment on this post with the URL to your Liebster post so I can learn more about you)! 11 Things About Me: 1.  I have always wanted red hair! 2.  I

Wednesday Week in Review & Two Thanksgiving Freebies!

Hooray for the four day weekend!  Wednesday has finally rolled around and here is a look at the art, literacy, art, math and art activities we did this week.  Did I mention that we did lots of art?  :) As mentioned Monday, we made these cute Turkey Hand Print cards.  You can find the free craftivity with cute poem insert here if you missed it earlier! We finished our Thankful Hands Turkey Bulletin Board!  First, we read Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes (which my kiddos were able to identify as a list book instead of a story book!  Gotta love writer's workshop in PreK!)   Then, they traced their own hand prints and wrote on the inside what they were thankful for.  Some of my more "ambitious" students wanted help sounding out the whole word, others only the beginning letter.  I have to say that I LOVE our environmental print word wall.  I have several new students (4 in the past 4 weeks!) who missed the foundation we set at the beginning of

Twas the Weekend Before Thanksgiving {Centers Freebie!}

Well, I finally got around to taking down some of our October fall-themed decor: Paper Plate Cats    Here are the instructions for the cats and also our super cute  pumpkin heads , if you would like to use them next year.  They certainly were adorable and a lot of fun to make! I also FINALLY put up the essentials of our Thanksgiving Bulletin Board (we'll do the thankful hand prints next week).  As a new teacher I have to say that bulletin boards are quite difficult for me.  It must take years of practice to become proficient at putting up the art paper background by yourself and to be able to intuitively center the title! And, for those of you who will be working Thanksgiving week with me, I made a free Thanksgiving-themed center packet!  The packet contains two different activities for your math and literacy centers, including a Clothespin Number Match for Numbers 1-20 and a Thanksgiving-themed Clothespin Letter Match with consonants.  I am so thankful f

Food, Health and Hygiene Fun & TWO Friday Freebies!

My first ever parent teacher conferences are over and I survived! They actually went really well. Although, as many of my parents said, I talk to them so much anyways it wasn't like they were hearing anything new. What can I say? I'm so proud of their kiddos and constantly have to let them know about it! :) Our theme this week was all about Food and Health with a little bit of Hygiene. Overall the week went a lot more smoothly than I expected, being that I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off finalising details for conferences, putting together invitations for Pies with Grandparents next week, and trying to pick a holiday song for our class to sing at the Holiday Program because, as the office keeps kindly reminding us, Christmas is JUST AROUND THE CORNER. Makes me exhausted just remembering! Anyways, here's a look at some of the fun art, writing center, dramatic play, math and science stuff we did this week! Art: Vegetable Soup Stamping 

Five Senses Fun and a Friday Freebie!

With parent teacher conferences looming next week, can I say Thank God it's Friday any louder?  :)  Here's a look at some of the fun activities, art projects, and centers we've done for the past week learning about Our Five Senses. Taste: Taste Class Book  We made a class book of our favorite tastes. I met with each group to work on the pages during our literacy rotations in the morning. For my lower groups, I directed them to sound out and spell only the first part of the word, and then I finished the rest. For my highest group I led them through sounding out and spelling the entire word. Smell: "Scentsational" Name Writing First, the students traced over their names in marker.  Then they traced over their names in glue (great fine motor practice!)  I had placed different distinctive spices in cups, which we smelled and tried to guess the name of (cinammon, pepper, and garlic).  The students then picked their favorite spicy