Pet and "C" Week

We talked about our "Pets" this week and the letter "C".  This past week was our first FULL week of school, five LONG days.  Man, either I am really out of shape (could be) or I'm really getting old (yes, I am).  Oh well, either way, I survived.  Tired, but still hanging in there.  The children and I are still trying to get use to each other and each week I try to do something a little "extra" fun.  This week we started off by painting with balloons.  I read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  There were a couple of children who had not heard of this book so it was fun to watch their faces and hear them yell, "Read it again!".  After we read the book we talked about what we like to eat when we are hungry.  Much to my surprise, "cake" was a big response (more on this later!).  Anyway. . . we divided up into small groups and I headed over to the craft area to make our very own hungry caterpillar.  Everyone was so surprised to see balloons all blown up and waiting for us.  We started by dipping our balloons into yellow paint and making big "blobs" on the page. 

 

Next, we added big green blobs right on top.

And a big red blog for the head.

 

We added legs and little antennas and let them dry.  Afterwards, we added cute little eyes, a nose and of course, a happy smile!  

 

I just love these little guys, don't you?  I especially love the fact that they were 100% made by the child.  This is a little pet peeve of mine and I'm sure I will be mentioning it from time to time (sorry!). 

 

Another great book that we read this past week was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by the wonderful Laura Numeroff.  I think this is one of my all time favorite books.  It should be, I've read it enough over the years!  We made a little chocolate cookie and added it to a "prompting note" to our parents.  It was easy, but it was fun.

 

I hope you can tell that the "chocolate chips" are our fingerprints.

This one made me giggle.  She said the mouse was hiding!

 

On of my special individual activities this week is our magnet box.  I was a little concerned about getting it out so early in the year.  I wasn't sure it we had people that put things in their mouths (something I am guessing is not a concern for Harvard professors!).  But, I kept a very close on it and everything went smoothly.  One of my students loved it.  He loved making a chain with the magnets.

 

 



During the week our circle time discussions generally were about our dogs and cats.  There was one day when we discussed what animal(s) we would like to have IF we could have any animal in the entire world.  Alligators and crocodiles were 2 of the favorites - YIKES!  It did make for a fun and lively circle time. 

 

Our letter of the week was "C" so we HAD to make a cat.  Now if you have read my blog before, you know that I big on giving the children choices.  Making our cat was no different, everyone decided on what color their cat would be.  First we painted a large paper plate and let it dry.  The next day we came back and cut some whiskers (it was "C" week after all!).  Most of the children had never cut with scissors before and most of them were quick to tell me they weren't suppose to use scissors.  After a little reassuring them that it was okay, they went to work.

 

Everyone did an amazing job cutting with scissors!!!

 

We added the freshly cut whiskers, ears, eyes and a little nose to make the cutest little cats!

On the back of each cat was a little note to the parents.  It said, "Guess who cut the whiskers?".  Everyone could hardly wait to show their parents!

On Thursday, we headed to kitchen to begin our weekly science experiment.  I had gone to my local Publix grocery store on Wednesday afternoon looking for fresh carnations (another great "C" word!).  The sweet manager finally located some for me way in the back of the store cooler.  It was a large bunch, big enough for EVERYONE to have flower!  We have a very sweet lady at the church who brings up empty Boost bottles.

She is so nice, she even takes the labels off of them for us!  They were the perfect size and shape for our experiment.   Each child selected his/her favorite color and we mixed the food coloring and water together.  Next, we carefully added our little flowers and waited . . . and waited . . . . and waited . . .

 

The next day we found a lovely surprise! 

 

 

 



Look very closely, can you see the colors starting to creep into the flower??  We sent them home on Friday and asked the parents to put them back into some colored water.  I cannot wait to hear how they are doing.

We read several stories about dogs this past week and one of the other teachers shared this next project with me.  It was really cute and easy.

 



I cut out the body, head and 2 ears.  The children had a great time painting them whatever color they wanted.  After they dried, we assembled them and added the cute little eyes.  One little girl was so excited, she now had a "real" dog of her very own!

Friday is always a fun day at school.  I want everyone to leave WANTING to come back.  After this week, I bet they ALL do!  We start our day with our Spanish class and everyone has so much fun with Mrs. Stacy.  Then we headed to kitchen to cook-up a little more science fun!  Our school is very good at using recycled products.  There is nothing that makes me happier then doing a project that cost little or nothing.  I found our big box of used and unloved crayons.

A lot of them already had the paper off so I just had to separate them.  The students picked out their favorite colors and put them into our little homemade bowl. 

We didn't have enough old muffin tins, so I just some aluminum foil

and made little crayon bowls. 

It worked pretty well.  They were funny looking and

the children loved it.

 

While the crayons melted slowly in the oven, we started working on our yummy "color-cake".  I mixed up 2 boxes of white cake mix (thanks again to Publix!) and each child got a large cup filled with batter.  Hold on, here comes the fun . . . . everyone got to add their favorite color of food coloring to the batter.  We spooned it into a cake pan

 

and popped it in the oven.  WOW, the entire school smelled SO good!  But we were patient and while it cooked, we got to use our new crayons!

 

 

I'm trying a little experiment myself.  On Friday's we are doing some free art.  This has no instructions and the children just have fun.  This week we had a lot of fun using crayons that we made ourselves!  INSTANT GRATIFICATION!!!

 

Soon the cake came out of the oven and we spread on some plain white frosting. 





 

 

As soon as we ate lunch we headed back to the kitchen to enjoy our cake!  

 

What a fun and yummy way to end our week!

 

Thank you for visiting with us.  I hope you stop back by and see what we will be doing next week!

New School Year 2013-14

The 2013-14 school year has officially begun!  It is quite a difference from last year.  I went from having 6 students last year to 9 this year.  I must confess that I really like a large number of students.  I know, most people think I'm totally nuts when I say that but to me there is so much less fussing with a large class.  As always, I held my breath the first day with my students.  Most of them already knew me because I had their brother/sister in my classroom or they had seen me at school last year.  A few were new to our school so I prepared for the worst.  I pulled out all the "extra" fun items from last year, I guess I was going for the "WOW" factor and it must have worked because we had NO tears!!! HAPPY, HAPPY, HAPPY!!!!!!  All in all my classroom is pretty much the same as last year.  Here are a few pictures.

This is my new birthday wall.

When the child has a birthday

we will add another candle to their cupcake.

This is our "Art Gallery".

We hang up very special pieces of art.

A close-up of our "Art Gallery" sign.

I love the lettering! 

My sweet son and his sweet bride-to-be gave me a Cricut Imagine last year

and boy have I used it!

I'm extremely lucky because my classroom is so large.  We have plenty of space to spread out.  Heck, I'm not lucky, I'm blessed.  I work with the most amazing people everyday.  I never say, "I've got to go to work", I say "I'm going to school".  Work is something you DO, school is something I WANT to do.  Okay, okay enough of that mushy stuff, let's see what we did last week!

We really don't have a theme or set curriculum for the first week.  We call it our "Getting to Know You" week.  We spent the first day taking pictures and talking, mostly talking.  I always try and pull out some paint the first day, because well, everyone loves to paint!  Of course we made an apple, but ours was a little different.  As one child said, "it looks like someone ate it already!".  It made me giggle.

 

I hope you can tell, we used our finger prints for the seeds!

On Thursday, we made a giant apple tree!  Again, we used our precious fingers for the apples.

Here is the special little poem at the bottom of the page.

Friday was a very special day!  It was our first "official" Fabulous Fun Friday and we had so much fun!!!  We made our very special "Friendship Pudding".  Now, if you have never made Friendship Pudding you are really missing out on some fun.  All you need is a couple of packages of instant pudding, milk and an empty container with a lid.  This year we used chocolate pudding and an empty Maxwell House Coffee tin.  I covered the tin with some red (our color for next week) construction paper and we added the pudding mix and milk.  Everyone took turns shaking up our concoction.  As we practiced sharing we also practice learning our names.  It was so much fun, by the end of the day we were all friends. 

 

 

While the pudding was setting up in the refrigerator we worked a little more on our sharing.  We covered our big kitchen table with butcher paper and everyone got big cups of paint.  I was careful not to give anyone their "favorite" color.  There was several very sad faces, but I had a plan.  Everyone got busy painting their masterpieces and then the fun began.  We started swapping the paint!!!  Next thing you know, everyone was calling out their friend's name asking if they would swap paint.  It was so much fun!  Here is our masterpiece! 

Of course the grand finale of our day was eating our WONDERFUL Friendship Pudding.  It was a great first week! 

The 2013-14 School Year Begins Today!

I can't believe it!  Where did my summer go???  I'm excited to start a new year but at the same time I'm a little sad leaving my sweet hubby after enjoying three fun months with him.  Oh well, my car is packed and I'm on my way!!!!  I can't wait to see what this year brings!  Wish me luck!

Teacher Appreciation Days at Jo-Anns!

Jo-Ann is hosting a Teacher Appreciation Days savings event August 10 and 11!  Teachers will receive 25 percent off all purchases throughout the weekend at Jo-Ann stores nationwide. And the best part is no coupon is needed! Simply present your current teacher identification and state-issued photo identification upon checkout.  Don't have a Teacher Appreciation card?  Then head over to http://www.joann.com/teach2014 and sign up today!!!!

Did You Know?

Did you know that teachers and educators can save 15% every day on every purchase in-store or at Joann.com by signing up or re-enrolling in the Teacher Rewards program?  That's right, teachers and educators can register at http://www.joann.com/teach2014 or in-store to receive discounts on classroom craft and sewing projects, classroom décor and organization products. 
Benefits include:

• Free discount card for 15% off every purchase.
• Bonus coupon for 20% off any one total purchase when you enroll or re-enroll in the program.
• More money-saving coupons as a Jo-Ann Preferred Customer.
• Personal notice of the latest sales offers, crafting trends and inspiration.

You know you are going to spend the money anyway, so hop on over to Joann.com and sign up today!

 

Under the Sea

Our "Under the Sea" week turned out to more fun than even I expected!  Usually by the time we get this deep into the school year, the students tend to get bored more easily.  NOT WITH THIS UNIT!  WOW, we had so much fun! 

This is my classroom!

I don't even remember where I got this large poster.

Someone threw it away and I retrieved it from the trash!

One of the most fun things we did this week was walk down our  hallways.  REALLY?!?!?!  Yes, we had so much fun swimming like a fish, crawling sideways like a crab and even floating like a jellyfish down the hall.  A real plus here is that fish are very quiet, so it was a wonderful way to keep us quiet as walked.  Okay, now let me show you some of the fun (and messy) things we did this week.

For the past couple of years, we have made a giant ocean scene.  It takes a couple of days but it is really fun.  First we have to paint the water.  Now that just didn't seem fun enough for us, SO we decided to do it the Mrs. Karen way!  First we squeezed on paint different colors of paint (green, blue, turquoise, and white).  Next, we used different types of rollers, brushes and scrappers to spread around the paint.

 

While that was drying (and it did take a full 24 hours to dry), we made different sea creatures out of our hand prints and cut out seaweed.  

Everyone was so very proud of their work!

One of our favorite books this week was Please Don't Eat the Teacher by Nick Ward.

 

This quickly became a class favorite and I was asked to read it everyday!  After reading it, there was no way my students were going to let me get through the week with a shark art project.  I think I nailed it!

 

Of course, there were those who wanted to make a hammerhead shark!



 

Here is a close-up of his/her mouth.  The children painted the inside of a small paper plate.  Then they cut (I drew the lines) little triangles all the way around the plate.  When you fold it in half it makes a perfect mouth!



 

I saw this amazing file folder game on PINTEREST but unfortunately the link did not work.

I loved the idea and I wanted everyone in my class to be able to do it.  Guess what?  We did!  Here is our Counting Octopus.

The octopus is a girl.  See her hair bow!

 



A close-up of our legs.

I will admit this activity is not for everyone.  There was a lot of circle punching involved in this, but I think it was worth it.  The children loved counting the circles and gluing them onto the legs.

Friday was our "Q" day.  We tried (really, we did) to be quiet, but as you can imagine it was more fun to be quick!  We also started working on our big Friendship Quilt.  This year we used real material.  Everyone picked out their favorite color construction paper and glued on different shaped pieces of material.

This is where I get to say "OPPS!"  I forgot to take pictures of the finished pieces, but I will and I will post them in a day or two.  We will join all the pieces together to form our giant "Friendship Quilt" and it will be on display for our end-of-the-year Art Show, which will be this Thursday.

 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting with us.  I hope you come back and visit with us soon.