Friday, November 29, 2013

So Thankful…for Cyber Shopping!

I’m not a Black Friday shopper I do NOT go out Thanksgiving Day, Thanksgiving Night, or Early Black Friday to purchase gifts! I am VERY introverted and am not brave enough to go out in all the “madness”!!!

I much prefer shopping in the evening hours of Black Friday (when all the people I deem “crazy” are at home resting from their adventures!) OR I will shop online! In fact, while sitting and talking with my family after the Thanksgiving meal yesterday, I purchased a pair of boots from Macy’s at a Black Friday cost! That is my kind of Black Friday! Ha ha!

That’s why I’m so excited about the annual TpT Cyber Monday sale! I built up my wish list the other day (I’m sure I’ll find more if I look again!) and I am SO excited to start purchasing on the 2nd!



IF you are interested in anything from my little shop, make sure that you enter the promo code CYBER to get an extra % off your purchases. My store is 20% off starting on November 30th but you will get 28% off of any purchases made on December 2nd-3rd!

I’m so excited to purchase my wish list items from the comfort of my home! Whether you are a “crazy” Black Friday shopper or an introverted Cyber Shopper like meHappy shopping!!


Mary

Thursday, November 28, 2013

Happy Thanksgiving


I wanted to take time out today to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that it is a fun day filled with happy family memories and REST!

 I'm thankful for all my followers! You rock! I hope to post again soon to give you some insight to the Hibernation unit I'm planning for my return to school next week!

Have a wonderful day friends!

Mary


Monday, November 25, 2013

Thanksgiving Fun!

Whew!!!

I’m exhausted! Last weekend, my hubby and I cleaned up our house (MUCH NEEDED!) and I even squeezed in some time in my classroom to clean my rug!

Today my littles were CUH-RAZY! The weathermen here in Ohio are predicting 3-5 inches of snow tomorrow so it all makes sense! Children are just little weather predictors, aren’t they!? Ha ha!

We managed to have some fun during the craziness today! The theme for the day was “Thanksgiving Past and Thanksgiving Present” or in Kindergarten terms “then” and “now”! We used activities from my Thanksgiving Past and Present Mini Pack to get through the day! 



You can see it here on TpT.

First we read the book “Thanksgiving Then and Now” and colored our own black and white version of the story! (Yeahno photos of student work L) Here are some photos of the product for you to see since I’m so unreliable with taking photos of my sweet littles and their awesome work! J








Since the words in the book are extremely simple, we took time to discuss what each photograph meant. Did the pilgrims drive cars? What DID they use to move from one location to another?

Then, we sorted “Past” and “Present” pictures whole group and my littles sorted on their own with a black and white student version! Here are some pictures of the sorts!

The color version of the sort is included in the pack. I used a small pocket chart because it was the first one I found!  :) Next year…it will be a bigger pocket chart, ha! 

Here is a student work sample: Once I saw how cramped the space was, I edited right away!! :)

THENthe real fun began! My littles helped me make butter today! J We discussed how the pilgrims made butter (I showed them a picture of a Plymouth Plantation actor churning butter) and how we can make butter (or how we could just go buy it at the grocery store)!

We took heavy whipping cream and poured it into a Tupperware container! When it was properly secured, we started to SHAKE SHAKE SHAKESHAKE SHAKE SHAKEShake our cream Okayenough singing!

Look at the smile on this facethey had a blast!



I placed the butter onto a piece of bread and let students try out their finished product! You’d think I would have spread pure sugar onto that breadthey. Just. Exploded. Good thing we waited to make butter until the end of the day! WHEW! I’m barely keeping my eyes open here! Since my sweeties grabbed up the bread/butter faster than I could snap a photograph, here is a photo from last year when I made the butter with my first graders!!



What fun things are you and your students doing for Thanksgiving?! Is anyone super lucky and already on break?!


Mary

Saturday, November 16, 2013

Talking Turkey FREEBIE

I’m getting more and more excited for Thanksgiving & the holiday season! I want to make sure my sweet little kindergarteners understand the concept of counting and cardinality so I came up with a game that I would like to share with you all!


Students should place the correct number of feathers onto the turkey’s back! This is a fun way to review and practice counting and quantification as well as cardinality! It is free on TpT! I hope you can use it!

Have a wonderful weekend friends!


Mary

Thursday, November 14, 2013

Word Family Practice

I had a short week with my littles because we were off of school on Monday in observance of Veteran's Day and we are off again tomorrow so that all the teachers in the district (including myself!) may attend professional development.

Of course we reviewed important things this week…but I also decided to challenge my sweetie pies a little! I introduced the "-at" word family to my Kindergarteners and several seem to understand the concept! Yippee!

We used letter posters from the "Making Words" Kindergarten book to spell out "cat", "hat", "rat", "bat", "sat", "fat", and "mat"! They were so excited to do "big kid" work! In order to practice the concept some more, I created a book for them! It is FREE on TpT so go check it out!



As always, taking pictures did not happen just yet…they will be added ASAP! My sweet littles are so excited to be reading things on their own! It is heartwarming to see! It was a great way to end my short week!

I hope everyone has an excellent Friday and a great weekend!

Mary

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Kindergarten is a Hoot!

Just a quick post tonight… :)

November is here and I am starting to have my littles think about what they are thankful for. I have realized that I need to be aware of who/what I am thankful for as well!

One thing I can say without a doubt is that I have AMAZING parent volunteers this year! In fact, one volunteer helped me create this fantastic hallway display:


Kindergarten certainly is a hoot!

What kinds of things do you have your parent volunteers help with??? I would LOVE to know what others are doing or have done in the past!

Happy Hump Day!


Mary