Ice Cream Sundae FUN-days...win the pack!

Wahoo!  We are out for Spring Break!  Love me some kiddos, but love me some extra sleepy time and extra do-whatever-I-darn-well-want time for real!

So ok, day 1 of break did NOT quite get started like I had planned.  When your 9 year old comes into the room and STOPS playing with his cousins who he hardly ever gets to see but totally adores, and brings a blanket and pillow and lays down on the FLOOR---the floor I tell you---and says he's just tired---Well!--- Don't believe him!!!  Go ahead and get out the meds, get the doctor on speed dial, and start your break off with a bang!  Turns out it's strep, but he already got that "glorious makes you feel better in like 5 seconds" booty shot, and he's already on the mend!  Just in time to make it to church for Easter!

So maybe day 1 will NOT be my favorite spring break day!  That's ok, there's plenty of time left to have some fun and find some mischief in which to partake! :)

And since spring break is here, that already has me thinking about SUMMER!!!!  Once we go back April 7th, it feels like the rest of the year stinkin' FLIES by!

And then...the LAST week of school!  "YAY!"  and "Oh dear lord have mercy, these kiddos are bonkers!" happens ALL at the same time.

Our sweet littles are absolutely OFF THE CHAIN that last week!  So that just will not do for us!  We like order, focus, perfection---well---at least some ORGANIZED chaos versus just plain old OFF THE CHAIN chaos! ;)

That's why we put our heads together last year and came up with something FUN but still standards driven to keep our kiddos engaged and keep us SANE!  And well, what do you know, it ACTUALLY worked!  We really and truly LOVED our last week of school.

We have ALWAYS had a different theme day for each day of the last week since as far back as I can remember.  We had fun things planned, but it just seemed like we weren't focused and the behavior got a little bit cuh-ray-zy! And by a little bit, I really mean crazy with a CAPITAL C!

So last year we decided to create writing and math activities to go along with each theme.  We went a little overboard and made TOO many things to do in only 1 day, so we may extend some of the theme days to 2 or 3 days each this year.  The kiddos LOVED completing the different graphs, activities, games, and fun stuff so much that they really didn't have much time left to get all CRAY-CRAY on us!

The last week was actually F-U-N!  I was extra sad to see the littles go when the last day finally arrived!  True story!

Anyway, we posted each of our theme days last year back when we were just starting out on TPT.  Let me just tell you that we have made A LOT of progress since then and when we looked back at our theme packs we were a little bit mortified---ok maybe A LOT mortified  ! So---that means time for an upgrade!!!

Here's the new, waaaaay cuter, 10 pages of activities and games added, and just all around BETTER...

Here's a quick peek!

Click the images above or below to purchase the pack at TPT!

Here's the "I need to see some more, please" peek!

 So...what do you think?  We hope you like it and think this may just be the answer to your last week of school blues!

 If you think it will do the trick, please leave us a comment below to have a chance to win this pack.  We'll give it away to 2 randomly selected winners!  Well choose the winners in a couple of days!

We would love to hear some of the tricks you have up your own sleeve to keep your littles in line those last few days of school!  It will be here before we know it! :)

Retiring, Egg Hunt & Happy Spring Break!

Hi Friends! Hope you are either finishing up or beginning your spring break with some rest and relaxation!!

Before you get too SAD, Cristy and I are not the ones who are retiring! We have lots of years to go (13), but who's counting :). Any way our SUPER FABULOUS principal announced her retirement. While we wish her well, we are a bit devastated at the news. We knew it was coming soon, but just didn't want to think it was now.

Have you ever had a principal who expected 110% from everyone and if someone could not give 110% he/she devoted time and resources to help get that person performing? Well, that's our principal!! She is one of those service leaders who will get you what you need so you can do your job better. She is also one of those leaders who goes into any situation with a bucket of water in one hand and  fire in the other. She is ready to put out a fire or get one started depending on the situation!

Enough about our sad news! On to FUN things like---EASTER!  So sorry if this activity is a day late! Maybe you could use it next year ;).

We had a super fun "Egg"tastic Math Egg Hunt! It was awesome. We bought enough plastic eggs for every kiddo to have one. We stuffed each kid's egg with 10 jelly beans. If you want to do this activity, feel free to put any number of jelly beans that work for you.

After we stuffed the eggs, we wrote each kid's name on an egg then hid them outside. The kiddos had to find the egg with their name on it. They couldn't tell their friend if they saw someone else's name. After finding the eggs, the students got a clipboard and work paper.

Students had to count the number of jelly beans and record. Then students had to decompose the
number of jelly beans they were working on into pairs. Finally, students wrote a word problem about their jelly beans and then gobbled them up. Yummy! Thanks Mrs. Kari, our student teacher, for getting us jelly beans!

Below is a copy of the "Egg"tastic math recording form we used. If you think you could use it sometime, feel free to grab it by clicking on the picture!

Hope y'all have(had) a great spring break and fabulous Easter!!

New Laptop! Fire Safety! XYZ Pack and Freebie!

Yahoo People!!! I got a new laptop!! Yay... no more having to use pink polka dot duct tape to hold the power cord in place. Too bad the pink duct tape didn't work that well since when I would sneeze or move, the computer would turn off. Yes, I did use it this way for about 5 months!!

Also, no more having to type on a full size external keyboard attached by USB because the g, h, and several other keys are missing! Yes, the smallest man of the house decided to pound on the keyboard about a year and 1/2 ago and it has not worked since. So thanks to one of my former student's adorable Dad and Mom for sending me the USB keyboard to use until I finally broke down and bought a new laptop TODAY!

On another note---We have a new Fire Marshall in town and he means business! While we appreciate his concern and efforts to make our school as safe as possible, we are pretty devastated at our recent changes!  This fellow is HARD CORE!

You are not going to believe it! You may even pass out--- NO fridge or microwave in the classrooms ANYMORE!! (Probably no microwaves with good reason because Cristy kept stinking up the place by burning popcorn!---but don't tell the fire marshall!)  How will we conduct edible science experiments and solve edible math problems? More importantly--- how will I keep my Diet Coke COLD!!!

There's more! We are a sprinkler free school. So, that means only 20% of the walls can be covered with stuff (art work, commentary, standards, student writing, etc...)! All of it is fuel!  BOOHOO! We love to cover our room and the halls with all of our students' amazing work and now we have to be selective. It is so hard to choose! We want it ALL!

Do you have regulations about how much wall space you can cover? Do you get to have a fridge or microwave in your room?  Do you have a Fire Marshall that's HARD CORE?  Waaahhh!

Anyway, we are still trying to keep our teaching on course even with all the Fire Marshall hoopla!

We just finished our X,Y, and Z Word Work Literacy Stations and Centers! We decided to combine the three letters so we could have more words to choose from. It would be too boring to have to use the same 10-15 words on every game/activity.

Check out our preview below. Also we included a freebie morning work sheet! Grab it if you like :).

Have a great weekend friends!!! Tell us what you are up to!

Free Assessments and a Giveaway!

Where does time go? We can't believe our year is almost over. Boohoo! Just when you get your babies trained really well, it is time to give them up. We spend the first 6 weeks of kindergarten wishing we could have our babies from the previous year back. We always forget how well we get them trained by the end of the year.

Can you believe it is already time for us to enter grades for the 3rd Nine Weeks? What is crazy is that we conduct formative assessments all the time. However, a couple weeks before we have to enter grades, we scramble because we decide our checklists, individual conference forms, journal entries, and work samples, may not be enough to prove to parents that their child Meets or Does Not Meet the Standard.

So, we get busy making one more final assessment to test these new skills.  Below are a couple of assessments for some Common Core Language Arts Standards that we just created.

If you are like us and just need ONE--- MORE--- ASSESSMENT to make SURE your kiddos meet the standard, feel free to click on it and grab.

If you don't need anymore assessments, you could also use these for formative assessments and/or extra practice.

K.RFS.3 (d) - Distinguish between similarly spelled words by identifying the sounds of the letters that differ.


K.RL.9 - Compare and Contrast the adventrues and experiences of characters in familiar stories.

K.RIT.9 - Identify basic similarities in and differences between two texts on the same topic.

Congratulations to our blogging buddy, Tammy over at 1..2..3..Teach With Me on 600 Followers. Thanks so much for letting us share in your success and participate in your giveaway. We are giving away our Common Core Unit 4 Math Pack: Wild About Addition and Subtraction. The giveaway ends Monday so hop on over and check it out.

If you have any great assessment ideas, we would love to hear them :). Thanks for reading!!

 Good luck in the GIVEAWAY!!

Currently...a little late to the party!

Ok, so technically we are NOT so current since it's March 10th and Farley posted her currently linky on the 1st...but hey...don't they say it's good to be fashionably late to the party???  Well...that's my story and I'm sticking to it!

So...without further ado...for fear of posting this so "late-ly" that it can't even be considered a "current-ly"...

So yeah...everybody's cracking out on a little bit of technology!  But...wait...before you yell at me for all this technology...let me plead my case!  We went to church together, baseball practice with Sam, played outside with bikes, kitties, puppies, and each other, came in...and well...everybody was ready to part ways...for a little indulgence time!  Kiddos on cartoons, husband on the X-Box, and me..well  you know where I went!  Up here to cruise around on Pinterest, check emails, and write this blog post!  For the love of Pete...I certainly didn't need to wait ANY LONGER to get the March lately currently! :)

72 degrees today!  Say what!!!!  I mean last weekend we sat out at the baseball field for 2 practices, total of 31/2 hours, in SNOW FLURRIES...people...it's Georgia...we are NOT prepared for this!  It's March...nearly Spring I tell you...SNOW...really????  I mean we were taking turns going to the car so that we could defrost ourselves just to get through the practice.  Kiddos were trying NOT to hit the ball because it was hurting their hands!  And then...today...SUNSHINE!!!!  Glorious, beautiful, warm, did I say glorious...SUNSHINE!!!  Wahoo!

Sunshine= no productivity occurring!  Needed to work on our next Math Pack - Unit 5 on measurement.  Did...not...happen!  Sunshine happened!  And it was goooooooood!!!  There's always tomorrow, right?

Did a little fly-by at Lowe's today for seeds, and well...I saw a new rug I wanted for the living room, a new lamp that would look AWESOME if I bought the new rug, and of course none of it REALLY matches the colors in my current living room, so I took a quick swing by paints before the HUBS put a ca-bash on the WHOLE plan!  Money...or lack thereof...darn it!  Don't you just hate party poopers!  Off to scratch some lottery tickets!

'Nuf said!

Like cats!  To steal a line from "Despicable Me" ... "Their so FLUFFY!!!!!"  Me likey!  My little kitty, Scout, is just the bomb!  He's a fluffy sweet snugly kitty by day, and "Katniss Everdeen" by night.  That little fellow hunts birds, moles, squirrels..you name it...It's his if he wants it.  WAY like!

Christ...need I say more!  The man is just awesome.  Taught my littles (technically mediums - 9 and 10 year olds) at church today all about the Passover festival.  Simply amazing that he KNEW what he would be facing, but he did it ANYWAY...for me...and for you!  LOVE!!!

Technically LOVE clothes, but can't STAND, LOATHE, absolutely DESPISE washing and folding them...but LAUNDRY didn't start with a C for Cristy so I had to stretch this one a little!  Honestly...if I did win the lottery, I think I would just wear each piece of clothing until it needed to be washed...and then I would just give it away and buy something new...thus...NO LAUNDRY!!!!  EVER-------AGAIN!!!  

And if you don't mind being LATE to the party either...we need some company...then head on over to Farley's at Oh Boy 4th Grade and link up!

Well that's it for our currently!  Hope you are having an awesome Sunday.  Resting, hanging with your peeps, and just taking it all in!

"Seuss"tastic Fun!!

Dr. Seuss's birthday was so much fun!

Our celebration was NUMBER 1!

Friday, our favorite Seuss character we did choose

We dressed up like the Cat in the Hat, Horton, the Lorax or one of the Whos.

That day was super, super fun

We ate yummy cake when the day was done!

Monday, was our crazy hat day!

We read Cat in the Hat and Seussville.com we did play!

Tuesday was the best of the best!

It really was lots better than the rest!

For Tuesday silly stripes we did wear!

We rotated classes, read books and fun activities we did share!

In Cristy's room, she read Cat in the Hat
Then the kiddos built the Cat's cool hat with marshmallows and sugar and that was that!

In Elaine's room the Lorax they did read

Then planted are real, for real Trufulla seed!

Page read Bartholomew and the Ooblek, you know that really long book!

Then Ooblek they made that was off the hook!

With a super easy mixture using Borax, food color, water and glue
The kiddos made some super fun GOO!

So, all the Teachers and Kiddos loved Dr. Seuss's birthday alot
Imagine a world without Seuss books, we cannot!

We leave you with our favorite Seuss quote below.
"The more that you read, the more things you will know.
The more that you learn, the more place's you'll go."

What Seuss things did you do for fun!
We'd love to hear all the things that you've done :)

Giveaway Winner!

Woo-hoo!  We actually were successful with hosting our first ever Rafflecopter giveaway!!!

Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who entered!  We had 678 entries!

So...who's the lucky winner?

We'll be sending our Short Vowels Bundle to you right away Erica!

Thank you again for supporting our first "official" giveaway.  Also, be on the lookout for a HUGE giveaway heading your way soon. Now that we took a baby step and got our feet wet with this giveaway, we are planning on hosting a fantastic giveaway with the support of some of our favorite bloggy buddies!  We'll keep you posted as we get rolling!

Princess and History Makers

    Hi Friends!! Long time no blog for me!! Yes, I am back from my never ending trip to the "Happiest Place on Earth"!! Wow my poor husband drove over 1000 miles for this princess. I am a lucky girl. I probably didn't have the best plan when I decided we should drive to Disney to take the boys Monday through Thursday  then drive to Valdosta, then drive back to Orlando for the Princess 1/2. Well I loved it!! I love to ride and I love going to the park with and without my kiddos!!

The Girls Before the Run :)

Anyway the run was super tough!!! I finished, but took longer than I expected. There were 22000 runners! You can only imagine the traffic on the course. The worst part was when we got to the castle we had to completely stop and wait to go through because it was so crowded. Not great when we were trying to run the entire time!! But, I loved running in my tutu and tiara and I love, love the gorgeous medal. So worth the 2 hours and 51 minutes and 13.1 mile run plus the extra mile or so to walk to the race beginning :).


After the Run :).

 Enough about princesses and travels!!! Time to celebrate our AWESOME Pal at Kooky Kindergarten. She has a store on Teacher Pay Teacher and a Teachers Notebook Store. Thank you Kooky Kindergarten for the adorable Dr. Martin Luther King Craftivity! The kiddos had to draw, cut and glue their own shapes and follow directions!!! Very important skills in kindergarten. Every child's finished product was unique.

 During Black History Month, we have been celebrating famous African American History Makers. The first history maker we celebrated was Dr. Martin Luther King Junior. We read stories, had discussions then finished off with an awesome craftivity from Kooky Kindergarten. Check out her link to purchase this craftivity. Also, check out some of our kiddo's work. They did an awesome job.

 Another history maker we celebrated was George Washington Carver. We choose to celebrate him to support our science unit on rocks ans soil and who can pass up a chance to celebrate the inventor of peanut butter. Can you imagine a world without peanut butter? I guess our peanut allergy friends would be happy!



We also celebrated Ruby Bridges! The kiddos had a great time creating portraits of Ruby and writing facts about her life!! The kids liked learning about a history maker who made history at their age!!

We have a few more important history makers we are going to have to learn about in March like Jesse Owens and Thurgood Marshall. We wish we had more time to do so many more :).

Don't forget our giveaway!!

This is the last day to enter to win our OWN bundle with products worth $23!

 Short Vowels Bundle:  Word Work MEGA Pack!

a Rafflecopter giveaway



By the way!! I have missed 3 weeks in a row of the Bachelor and Cristy has failed at her friend job to keep me updated! I would love any info on what happened. The only thing I know is he sent Ashlee home!! Boohoo! I loved her! Why did he send her home?????