Spooktacular Sale! 20% Off!

Happy Halloween!  To celebrate this SPOOKY holiday, JD's Rockin' Readers decided to host a SALE!  Our entire store, Kindergarten Squared, is marked down 20% for WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 31st only!!!  There are lots of other great stores throwing their own SPOOKY sales as well.  Click on the "It's a Spooktacular Sale" image to head over to JD's Rockin' Readers' blog to see all the great stores participating!

 

Happy Halloween!

Minions, Angry Birds, Humpty and Fruit of the Loom

Hi Blogging Buddies! We had Family Fun Night at our school this week!

 It is always so much fun to see how all of the teachers, parents and kiddos are going to dress up! We always love this event!! Well, except for the day of this big event when all of our little friends are off the chain with excitement and anticipation!

Well, and maybe the day after this event is not that great either since the kiddos are all sugared up from eating all the candy WE gave them the night before :).

By the way, why do the kiddos seem to go into overdrive when Dads come into the classroom to help with special projects, like carving awesome jack-o-lanterns? Cuh-ray-zy!!!

Anyway back to Family Fun Night. Natalie, our super creative assistant, always seems to come up with the absolute best ideas for costumes. Not only does she come up with the ideas, but also is responsible for designing the costumes, props, and everything else. She then wrangles the other Super Assistants to help with the decor!!

 What do we do, you ask? We just show up and look cute in the great costumes designed by Natalie!! Thanks Natalie, Christie, and Renee for all your hard work getting us ready for the big night :).

Check us out this year as well as a couple of other years in the past!!

2012 Family Fun Night!!

Can you guess who we are? No, sorry we are not Bob the Builders :)!

2011

2010

2009

2 Great Giveaways!

Hi there!  A quickie post to let you know about 2 great giveaways!

Erin, over at Tales From Room 112, is celebrating 200 followers!  Wahoo!  Head on over for a chance to win over 50 products!  You have about 4 days left to enter!

Corinna, over at O"FISH"ally a First Grader, is celebrating 100 followers...and counting!  She has divided her awesome giveaway up by grade levels...with 4 total giveaways!  You don't want to miss this one!

Stubborn baby lambs...and a GIVEAWAY!

Hey there friends!  

Hope you are all having a GLORIOUS SUNDAY!  It's a beautiful, sunny, fall day here in Georgia...so lots to be grateful for!  

BUT (I know...a but...they just happen!)...I have to tell you, my youngest kiddo was not making me feel too Christian at church this morning!!!  I do the children's moments at my church and today was talking about how we are like sheep...sometimes we follow when we shouldn't, sometimes we wander too far from home, and the kicker...sometimes we aren't too smart.   The story I shared was about how if a sheep gets stuck in a hole in a fence, it will just keep trying to get through the hole even though it's not working.  Not too smart!

Well, I swear I felt like a mama ewe this morning because my youngest "lamb" was NOT COOPERATING during the church service.  He wanted candy...no!  He wanted to move to sit with his Mima (which would require crawling UNDER the pew)...no!  He wanted to do ALL the THINGS that he knew would get him in trouble...but dang it...he was gonna push through that hole in the fence NO MATTER WHAT! 

That boy...I DO love him...but he will wear a Mama down sometimes!  (Can you tell I just got home from church and the scenario is still pretty fresh!)

Anywho...in honor of this being the GLORIOUS day as above mentioned...we want to give you gifts!  I told you we DO love to give stuff away...LOTS of stuff...so much stuff that you may just need to buy more printer ink to claim it all!!!!  

Christi Fultz over at Mrs. Fultz's Corner is having a HUGE giveaway to celebrate her 30th birthday, but the best part is YOU GUYS get all the presents.  And what I L-O-V-E about her giveaway is that she divided all the goodies up into...

17 GIVEAWAYS!  That means you can find the RIGHT giveaway for you!  You can choose from:

Math Bundles

Reading Bundles

Science Bundles

Halloween Bundles

Thanksgiving Bundles

And our FAVORITE...WINNER'S CHOICE Bundles!!!  ( We like to choose our prizes...or maybe we are showing a little, ok...A LOT of favoritism...because we are part of--- 

WINNER'S CHOICE BUNDLE 4!!! 

 That's right...you can pick ANY item from our store plus 4 other awesome stores.  So head on over to Christi's blog, scroll to the bottom to find Winner's Choice Bundle 4...and jump in!  

While you are there...what the hey...go ahead and get wild and crazy and find some other bundles that you love!  Happy Birthday to You!!!  Hope you win!

What about Winter?

What about the book Winter's Tail? Our kiddos loved, loved, loved, this non-fiction book also!! Both Nubs and Winter were great books to teach non-fiction as well as introduce the story elements and using the story elements as a Comprehension Strategy!

The great thing about the book on Winter was the live web cam that we checked every day at the Clearwater Marine Aquarium to check in on Winter and her friends, Panama and Hope. Click the link below the book jacket to go to the live webcam! The link will take you to one camera view. Once you are there, you can click on other views/cameras. Super Cool!

Winter's Webcam

We have to say that this book was also long and had lots of words!! Therefore, it took us several days to read the entire book. We were amazed at how our kiddos became engrossed in the topic and truly excited about Expanding Their Vocabulary and Tuning in to Interesting Words!!

It is so amazing to hear our kids use vocabulary from the story like saying that they are exhausted at the end of the day or they got injured or wounded on the playground!! What was really funny was when one friend said they needed new water for their water color paint because theirs turned murky!! Awesome!!!

Anyway, Winter's Tale provided us with a great opportunity to work on Story Elements. Hope you can use the idea below. Just click on the picture below to grab teh story map :).

Nubs!

Have you guys read the story Nubs: The True Story of a Mutt, a Marine, and a Miracle?  Oh...my...goodness... It's puh-reh-cious!

Our state created some really good frameworks for us to use to support the new Common Core curriculum.  One of the stories in our 1st 9 week unit is Nubs!  This is a non-fiction story that tells a heartfelt chance meeting of an Iraqi dog of war and a US Marine.  These 2 form an unlikely bond that ends with Major Brian Dennis raising over $2,000 to have Nubs sent to the US so that he can have a REAL home with Brian.

It's a pretty long story, so we spread the reading out over several days.  But we have to say, the kids LOVED this book and just couldn't get enough of it!

We created several resources to go along with the book.  We hope you can use them too!  Just click each picture to grab your copy!

Winners! and Owwwww!

OK...so a big shout out to the sweet followers who left their comments about our Common Core Math Pack!  The pack was up for grabs for 3 of our followers who left comments.  We had several comments, but only 4 folks left their email addresses!

How could we POSSIBLY pick just 3 and leave one follower out????  We CAN'T...so all 4 of you ladies get the pack!!!!!   Woo-hoo!  We LOVE giving stuff away!

Hope you ladies enjoy the pack.  Please let us know what you like, what you would change, anything you want to let us know.

On another note...I hope you know just how much I love you people.  I actually had to go up 1,000 12 stairs to get up here to the computer...and I am telling you that was a LABOR of LOVE!   Every stinkin part of me is hurting today after 13.2 miles of mud, muck, 20lb. sandbags, mud pits, barbed wire, lakes, 8 foot walls...Seriously...who signs me up for this craziness?  Oh wait...that would be me!  People...I need help!

 BEFORE:  Nice and clean and scratch free and bruise free and all body parts still attached!

AFTER:  OWWWWWWWWWWW!  Please don't make me move, cough, sneeze, or do ANYTHING else that will make me cry like a blubbering heap of a once human!  Seriously...crazy...cuh-ra-zy...but SO MUCH FUN!

Hope you all had a super weekend that DID NOT involve a pulled hammy! :)

Stomach Bug Carrying Rapscallions!

So I had BIG BIG plans for my long 4 day weekend!  Mostly hang out with the fam, go to church, see my kiddos play football, watch the Georgia game (DO NOT EVEN GET ME STARTED on that horrendous spectacle!), you know...just chill.

Instead my stomach bug carrying rapscallions poor sweet kiddos had a rough week with 10 of my 21 kids out with the stomach bug.  And of course, "in kindergarten we share, WE SHARE EVERYTHING!!"  (Bet Robert Munsch wasn't thinking about tossing your cookies when he wrote THAT line!)

So begins my glorious long weekend...waking up in the night, cold sweats, having crazy dreams, stomach in knots...let's just say it wasn't that pretty.

So thank the good Lord above, this one seems to have been a 24 hour bug and I am back to the land of the living...not to mention 4 pounds down!!!  Woo-hoo!  Let's hear it for the ONE perk to stomach viruses!!!

Anywho, we haven't posted in a while so I thought I would try and get up here to mission control and give something away to alleviate the guilt!  Our guilt, your gain! ;)

We just finished up our Common Core Kindergarten Math: FALL into Building Numbers to 20- Unit 2 pack!

We would love to give it away to 3 of YOU!  Please leave us a comment below that includes what you like about the pack or how you might plan on using it in your room.  Please include your email address so we can get it out to you if you are one of the BIG winners!

We'll do the random generator thing to figure out who wins...and sense we are new at all of this...we'll put the names in a hat and pull 3 out if worse comes to worse....kickin' it old school style!

We'll pick the winners on Friday the 12th!

Hope you have a SUPER Sunday!

Cry for Help!

Hi Friends!!  I have always known that I had some degree of ADD. However, since my second child was born, it has gotten more severe! Seriously!! I should have clued into the severity of my problem when my husband found several things in the refrigerator that didn't belong there. I am not kidding! Two weeks in a row, after my weekly grocery shopping trip, my husband found a taco seasoning packet in the vegetable drawer and then a chili powder packet in the cheese drawer. While no harm was caused, I should have taken both events as MY SIGN!!!


I have to say that last Monday was one of the scariest afternoons I have ever, ever, ever had in my teaching career!!! I walked out of the building with all my bus riders in tow! I put my daycare riders in their spot and began sending my kids to their correct bus. However, in my haste to load kids, one of my kids got on the wrong bus! It was completely my fault ! I stood in front of my friend's bus for her to get on, turned around to talk to another friend, when my bus friend got on the wrong bus unnoticed! Yikes!! I put the rest of my kids on their bus and went our grade level meeting.

What do you think happened? Yep, I got that call asking how I sent my friend home! I told the office that I put her on the bus, still not knowing it was the wrong bus. Well, to make a long story short, my baby was eventually put on the right bus and her dad followed our principal to the nearby high school to get his baby!! Boy was he HOT!!

I do pride myself in taking responsibility so I called the mom later that afternoon to apologize, too bad for me I was the first one to break the news to her! She was awesome! Told me to calm down (enjoy a cold beverage) and that everyone makes mistakes. I called the dad also. He was super, super nice. He told me he wasn't mad at me but angry because my friend's big brother had tried to tell the bus driver that his sister wasn't on the bus and she didn't listen until it was too late. Still, IT WAS MY FAULT!!


As for me, Please tell me do I need to seek professional help for my problems? Would some ADD medicine help me focus on what I am supposed to be focusing on? Please, help me know what to do!! I do not want to lose anymore kids!! I triple check each day before loading them on the bus!!!

Below is a cute way we keep track of how all our kiddos go home each day :). Feel free to make it your own :). Good luck keeping up with all your babies. If you want to handwrite your kids name on the transportation use the link below. If you want to type or change anything put your email in a comment and we will send you the publisher version or send us your email address at page.tarleton@cowetaschools.net or cristy.fogle@cowetaschools.net

Thanks a bunch :)

Daily Transportation