A Favorite DAD!!

Happy Monday friends!! We hope your week is off to a great start!! We are so excited about a book written by one of our own School DADS. 
Yep, I taught this Dad's two boys in kindergarten several years ago! Last year, of course after I left the classroom, this DAD returned to kindergarten because he had written a children's book!! It is a really cool concept!! It is interactive. You can read the story, then color the pictures!! Later you can even write some of your own ideas!! He came back to kindergarten to read to Cristy's class and left all the kiddos a book!! He is awesome!!
Back in the day when he came to Kindergarten for a visit, he would stir the kids up with bumblebee eggs (cool trick in an envelope)!  We loved when he visited KINDERGARTEN!!   My favorite thing he ever said, "After Tarleton's class, I never knew the teacher!"
Show some love for this DAD!! Check out his book !!! Click the image if you want to check i out!!

Thanks for reading!!!

A Little Faculty FUN

So, this is the slack partner of Kindergarten Squared!!! I have been missing in action and Cristy probably about ready to fire me!!  So what have I been doing?? Mostly trying to get my 4 year old acclimated to pre-k! From the time he was 10 weeks old until last Friday, Brooks stayed with Nana. Let's just say the first day was a mess!!! Luckily he only ran from class once and the principal only had to call my husband once!! Each day has been getting a little better, but we still have Nana on reserve, just in case.!! Keep your fingers crossed we both survive!

My little one resting after running away from pre-k!!

Wish me luck!!

At our first faculty meeting we decided to have a little fun!!! We borrowed a STEM idea from one of our awesome new teachers, Mrs. Hardin. We have a pretty competitive staff so we knew a competition would be great for getting teams working together and having fun!! What was the prize???  Lunch out and the school foots the bill!! Yay!! Well all except for tip and taxes!! Our book keeper keeps us in line! We challenged each team to stack cups into a tower using a rubber band with strings attached. Each team member had to control a string and no one could use their hands. Unfortunately we did not give very specific instructions. However, in our mind we imagined these super tall towers where each row had one less cup! Of course the kindergarten team in conjunction with out REACH teacher decided to create their own interpretation of a tower.  We sent three teams to lunch!! It was really fun!!

We would love to hear some fun ideas you guys do at your faculty meetings!!! 

Thanks for reading!!

Hallway Displays for BACK TO SCHOOL!

Woot!  Woot!  We survived the 2 weeks of getting our classroom all set-up AND our FIRST DAY of school with the kiddos!  And oh my word....I LOVE them already!  They totally stole my heart.  The mischievous ones right along with the little sweet ones.  We are going to have an entertaining year for sure!  Love them to pieces!
So each year, our whole hall goes ALL OUT to make some super cute hallway displays for back to school.  It's the first thing our new families see as they are coming down the hall to meet us at our Orientation afternoon.  Of course we want to make a great first impression, not to mention we are all a little bit competitive and like to make each other step up our game from year to year! ;)
So here's what we came up with for our display this year!

   So I do have to say I'm pretty darn proud of this.  First off, we came up with the idea COMPLETELY by ourselves.  I mean, that's a pretty big deal...right?  Since Pinterest hit the scene, I mostly just hopped over there and found something.  But this idea...it just came to us.  Well...we did have a little help!  Here goes....The adorable lady selling popsicles out of the back of our truck is my bestie and my teaching TA.  We take an annual girls trip with another longtime teaching friend, and we've just added said besties oldest daughter to the mix the last 2 years.  Maggie is 24 so she counts for an adult, plus she keeps us young (I mean...Christie and I are in our mid forties...sometimes naps sound better than late nights out if you know what I mean!)

Anyway, as we were soaking up the sun relaxing on the beach..."When what to our wondering eyes did appear, but an ice cream truck bringing lots of cheer!"  We heard the tunes playing and Maggie and I were both like "Hey, we could do a hall display!"  I mean seriously, do we teachers ever STOP doing the teacher thing...I mean ever...even while relaxing on the beach!!!

So the idea was hatched then and there.  Maggie said she could do her magic on the popsicle creating using her Cameo, Silhouette, or whatever her fancy machine is!  Popsicles...done!  I knew I could use some KG fonts to bust out a cute title.  So all that was left was an ice cream truck design.  That would be easy.  I headed over to TPT and found some cute clip art from Monster Wrangler Mike.  Normally Christie has me print it out, transfers it to a transparency, enlarges it onto the board using an overhead, traces it onto butcher paper, and 10 hours later...VOILA!  But seriously, she was working a part time summer job and wasn't able to help.  Maggie and I have NO PATIENCE for that.  So we did the super fast route of printing out his ice cream truck image, and drawing that sucker freehand on the paper!  I think we kinda rocked that part!

Then we put it all up.  I knew it needed something else...especially a way to show the kid's names.  So I added the "Fogle and Mappin's KINDERGARTEN Ice Cream Truck" sign and put the kiddo's names as "Flavors of the Year".  It was still missing something...in comes my amazing coworkers to save the day.  Meredith, the Pre-K teacher from across the hall, says "Why don't you put your pictures on there?  One of you driving and one of you selling popsicles?"  She's a genius I tell you.  So we took some photos, cut them out...and BAM!  It was finished.  (Unless you count the fact that I was driving a magical truck because I had no steering wheel!  In came another fabulous coworker, Janene, who printed me one and even added it to the display!) DONE! and DONE!

Here are just a few of the other super cute hall displays.  Some of these are original ideas, and some were inspired by Pinterest, but I think they all turned out fantastic!

Here's hoping you find your own inspiration to spruce up those hallways for Back to School.  We hope you each have an amazing year!  Teach on!

SitSpots Giveaway WINNER!!!

Um...what just happened there?  The giveaway ended Wednesday morning, and then there was a crazy blur of 4 hour PD sessions, hot glue scenarios that involved strings of the stuff falling out of places hot glue should not be, name tag creating, hallway decorating, copying, and other madness otherwise know as "HOLY MOTHER....School Starts THIS FRIDAY and I'm NOT READY!"
Whew!!!!  Now that I actually survived getting my room ready AND our FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL just yesterday, I am finally ready to announce the SitSpots Giveaway Winner!!!  Woot-Woot!
Hundreds of folks entered and we sincerely appreciate every one of you!  If we could, we would so be like Oprah..."SitSpots for YOU, and SitSpots for YOU, and YOU!"  But alas, we teach, so that just ain't happening! ;)  But at least we are able to randomly select (along with the helpful random selector people over at Rafflecopter) one of you to snag this amazing prize!
So here we go...

Sheryl, you are the LUCKY winner!  I'll be emailing you the gift card code for your $50 SitSpots prize!  We truly hope you love these bad boys as much as we do.

And if you don't know too much about SitSpots, but now you're thinking "What are these magical creatures and how do they work?"...then head over to SitSpots to read all about them or our SitSpots Blog Post.

And as an update....We started school yesterday and the kiddos loved them.  They thought they were cool and they thought choosing a color was pretty awesome.  (Side note...I did have ONE friend that considered pulling one up...you should have heard the teeth sucking going on in my room.  If the kids could have shot darts from their eyes...they would have.  Needless to say, he politely smoothed that sucker RIGHT back down!!!!)

And A HUGE THANK YOU to Joyce over at SitSpots for her VERY GENEROUS donation!

I-Pad Air 2 Giveaway...and More!

Oh my word.  Back to School has really gotten here for us.  We had our "Meet the Teacher" visits this afternoon.  I am feeling some serious LOVE for my sweet new littles!
And with all of this back to school planning, decorating, laminating madness...some sweet bloggy friends and I decided we needed to show you all some LOVE!  

Head over to I Teach Kinder, our collaborative blog with ALL things KINDER, and enter this amazing giveaway.  An I-pad Air 2 is pretty amazing all by itself, but there's a whole lot more!  You also win 2 adorable owl cases, a Stylus, and an I-Tunes gift card!
We wish for each of you to have a year that's filled with love, tons of learning, and a classroom full of positivity!  YOU make all the difference in the WORLD!
Good luck and here's to a wonderful year!

TPT "LOVE Back to School" SALE!

Oh my word!  I love a sale!  I truly and seriously love to save some cash AND score on my favorite finds!  It's time for the annual TPT Back to School sale.  And this just may be my favorite one yet...because, well...it's all about LOVING what we do!
Here are a couple of items that will be up for grabs when the sale goes live Monday, August 3rd and Tuesday, August 4th.  Be sure and use the code BTS15 for an additional 10% savings!
So to take all of the guess work out for you, we've already broken down the savings!  This is our Back To School GALORE for Kinders pack!  This pack is chock full of FUN and ENGAGING activities for Back To School.  You'll find "getting to know you" activities, simple interactive readers, fun 1st day photo props, and more.  You'll snag it all for ONLY $5.76!
You can also find our Back to School GALORE for FIRSTIES pack on sale!

This fun little number can be found in the Back to School Galore Pack too.  But if you just need a quick back to school activity, you can grab this Back To School Keepsake Flapbook by it's self for ONLY $2.16!

Some other GREAT deals include our Interactive Sight Word Flap Books, Readers, and More!  Since this is an already discounted bundle, the savings are even BIGGER!

Regular Price Before Bundling:  $40.00

Bundle Discount: -$16.00

With 20% Sale Discount: -$4.80

With TPT Code BTS15: -$1.92

FINAL PRICE: $17.28

So take some time, feel some LOVE for Back to School, and head over to our store for some AMAZING DEALS!!!  You're gonna ROCK this year!

Thanks Gabby for the adorable button!

SitSpots GIVEAWAY! I'm in LOVE!

If you've been following us on Periscope...then you KNOW "I got 99 problems and my rug is one!!!"  We had to pack up EVERYTHING...and I mean EH-VUH-REE-THANG in our rooms at the end of the year.  Our entire school had all the carpet ripped up and shiny new white tile installed in its place. 

Great, right?  Everything's all sparkly and clean.  Except I had a major RUG drama going on.  Our old Lakeshore "spot for everybody" rug was on it's last leg.  I mean, a rug can only be barfed on, peed on, drawn on, and tooted on so many times before it dies a slow and ugly death!!!! ;) It was past the point of no return.  And alas, the drama didn't end there.  Those bad boys cost upwards of $400 and the funds are just NOT THERE for everyone in our school to get a new rug.  So our sweet admin team found a way to allot each of us a smaller sum to purchase a rug or a class set of carpet tiles that can be carted all over the place and used for a ton of purposes. I ended up choosing the carpet squares, but that still left me with my RUG DRAMA.  Don't even think those carpet squares can be carted to the front of the room and placed in ANY sort of order that wouldn't tear my nerves slap to pieces.  I mean...the thought of that just makes my stomach twist into knots.  I'm far too OCD in that regard.  I agree with Kristin at The Teeny Tiny Teacher when she said,   "I never did anything except say to my kids over and over and over again . . . Where's your spot?  Which row are you on?  Wait.  I am supposed to have five rows.  It looks like we have six and a half and a couple of islands and possibly a peninsula.  What's going on here?  Last row -- scoot up and join us, I can hardly see you back there!  First row -- scoot back, you're practically on top of me and I cannot breathe For The Love Of Pete Can Everyone Just Sit Where I Assigned Them?!"  

That woman cracks me up y'all!  I totally envision the carpet squares ending up this way when I tell the kids to bring them in.  SOOOO... to solve the rug dilemma...I bought my OWN 8x12 rug from Lowe's for $72 bucks.  Now the tag said it was "charcoal", but once I got it in my room it said "black".  To be honest, I am feeling some serious love for it, but I already know that my teaching partner is going to beat me.  Beat me, I tell you.  My brand new rug is not so good at hiding stuff, what with it being "black - supposed to be charcoal" and all.  I bought a Shark vacuum cleaner to solve that.  Now that woman can vacuum to her heart's content and fall in love with the rug too. But...I digress!!!

So how did I solve the whole "island, peninsula, what kinda order is this"seating dilemma?  I bought SitSpots.   I did y'all!  I really did.  And I swear I believe in my heart that it may just be the best $55 dollars I have ever spent.

They look SO bright and happy on my rug.  EVERYBODY has a spot and this OCD teacher is happy for some order!  AND the best part is the rug and spots came in at just $135 total!  Way better than $400+.  And to be honest, I think it's WAAAAY cuter.  No offense to my old rug, this one just matches my class decor perfectly.  And did I mention I can wash those SitSpots and keep that rug looking beautiful! And did I also mention that this suckers stay put.  You can vacuum right over them with no worries, and you KNOW that will make my teaching partner very happy.  And did I also also mention that they come in all sorts of bright colors and even other shapes like stars and hearts and fish, oh my!  People...it's my JAM!  I am one happy girl!  Now...let's just hope none of my sweet new babies even CONSIDER pulling up 1 of my SPOTS!

And do you remember when I said it was the best $55 I have ever spent?  Well...here's YOUR CHANCE for it to be the BEST $50 you DON'T have to spend!  That's right!  You get a chance to win $50 in SitSpots for FREE!  I know, right!!!!

I emailed Joyce over at SitSpots to see if they had any coupon codes going on right now that I could offer to you all.  And that sweet woman, well she did even better.  She said "How about you give a $50 SitSpots gift card code away to a reader!"  And I was all like "Woman, I love you!  Sit Spots are my new JAM and now I get to share them with a bloggy friend". (Or something along those lines...I was so excited who knows what I emailed her!)  It was a happy moment I tell you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway  The giveaway will end Wednesday!  Come Thursday morning...you might just be the new proud owner of some glorious SitSpots!!!  Good luck!