Five for Friday

It's been a while since I've joined this fun linky, so I'm happy to be back with five things to share. This week seemed to go by so quickly, but I feel pretty good about all that we got done. And, I even remembered to snap some pictures!

First up ~ a bowl of my hubby's famous (and, should be award winning) chili. He doesn't use a recipe, but my oh my is it good. It's topped with cheese, chili flavored Fritos, and freshly made guacamole. A glass of Riesling isn't exactly the typical beverage to drink with chili, but it is my favorite!

#1b ~ every Friday my family (daughters, their husbands, and kids) come to our house for dinner. Tonight we had French inspired food based upon the French wine my hubby collected this week. Last Friday we had Italian wine & Italian food. Next week we plan to have Mexican and will serve something a little more authentic than Riesling. Maybe Margaritas.

I decided that this year is the year I work on updating older products. My "office" is our family room couch. Chip & Joanna are frequently my companions as I work. Check out my newly revised Cupcake Literacy Activities HERE.

Last week we had fun talking about snowmen & made a couple snowman crafts. The first is a Sneezy the Snowman craft from Deanna Jump. The shape of their snowman's head (round or melted) the the type of hat were determined by spinning & graphing information. So, no two snowmen were exactly alike. (But, when do any kindergarten crafts end up looking alike?)

Olaf is surrounded by little snowmen that were painted with Q-tips. There is something more fun about painting with cotton swabs than with brushes. My kids love to paint, but they really get excited if they get to use something other than a regular paintbrush.

Last week was Polar Bear Week! I really love having a theme to my week ~ especially if it's an animal. I think I have as much fun learning about animals as the kids do! We shared the pen (a Sharpie!) to complete this chart. I was impressed by their "kindergarten spelling." A couple of kids were spot on with their spelling!

We made two polar bear crafts this week ~ this glittery friend is from my Polar Bear Science & Writing set. (Purchase HERE.) This project took a while to create. First, the kids cut out & assembled their bears. Next they created a snowy background. Some, like the one in the lower left corner had seals & other Arctic elements. Of course, no frosty scene could be complete with a little (and in some cases, a lot) of iridescent glitter!

Our other polar bear craft was this cute directed drawing. I have come to really enjoy doing directed drawing with my students. It not only gives them practice listening & following directions, directed drawings give them a fun, creative experience. Like I said earlier, no two Kinder projects are ever the same. We drew onto gray paper, colored the bears white & used water colors to paint the background. I love how they turned out! They look so cute hanging on our hallway tree.

Dude! One of my Kinders' favorite literacy stations is the "Games" station. In this station I have a variety of literacy games & activities. One popular activity is clip cards. Get these in my Montly Literacy Stations bundle HERE. I got the cute green clips at Michaels. (Do you remember to show your teacher ID when shopping at Michaels? They give a teacher discount on almost everything!)

Thanks for visiting! I welcome your comments. :-) Hop over to Doodle Bugs Teaching for more Five for Friday fun! 

What's on Your Wish List?

It't time of year when we are making lists of things to purchase for your loved ones. I'm almost done with my shopping (I only need to make a trip to The American Girl Store & check out my Amazon cart). Then, I can think about what's on my Wish List ~ my TpT Wish List! I'm joining some amazing teacherpreneurs to showcase our top three wish listed items. Are any of my items on your list?

Visit my store ~ HERE.

Click HERE to purchase.

Read a blog post about this set HERE.

Click HERE to purchase.

Click HERE to purchase.

Read a blog post about this set HERE.

Click HERE for more great Wish List items. Happy Shopping!

Pumpkins & More

I can't believe that October is almost over! Where did the time go?? It's hard to believe that in two days it will be November (that's when the count down to Christmas begins in my house. And, yes, I might have listened to Christmas music yesterday.) But, back to October & all things autumn...

I love how these cute pumpkins turned out. The kids drew their pumpkin shape onto orange paper & painted them with orange, yellow, and red paint. The next day they cut them out & "carved" funny & fierce faces on them using black & white paper. These Jack-o-Lanterns are as unique as their makers.

I always go to the pumpkin patch with my daughters & granddaughters. There was no shortage of pumpkins around here!

Yay! Halloween is back at my school! We have a new principal and are finally allowed to dress up for Halloween! In the past we've used loopholes like 50th Day, Red Ribbon Week, and Favorite Character Day to wear costumes, but were never allowed to do a real Halloween party. I think the PTO moms were as excited as the teachers & kids about the party. We celebrated on Friday with a costume parade & party. It was so much fun!

My sweet team ~ we dressed up as M&Ms!

Not just for October ~ bat & owl comparison. This Venn diagram is part of my Night Fliers Science & Writing set. Click HERE to purchase. We usually study bats in October, but really they can be a part of your study of nocturnal animals and even hibernation.

I was so excited by our writing this week! Of course, some kiddos are still just drawing pictures, and some are beginning to add labels. But, a few are really working on writing sentences! Check out these sentences!

The next few pictures have nothing to do with education at all. My youngest daughter recently embarked on a crafty adventure. In addition to her job in marketing, she has created some beautiful items for sale. She's done a few markets, and has an etsy store. (Click HERE to visit her store.) You can also find her on Facebook HERE. I have to say that I am very proud of her beautiful work!

And, finally this REALLY isn't education related, but does bring us back to pumpkins. We recently had our Third Annual Pumpkin Beer Taste Test! There were 14+ bottles of different pumpkin beers to taste as we enjoyed delicious chili made by my hubby. Shot glasses made the perfect tasting glasses, and we marked our reactions to each beer on a record sheet. Such a fun day ~ good food, good beer, and most importantly, good company!

Literacy Stations

We have been in school for a month and my Kinders are really getting the hang of school! Last week they did such a great job during our Literacy Stations. I was so excited at their stamina and ability to stay on task for the (almost) entire time. It takes lots of practice to get fifteen five year olds to be able to work independently, but it pays off big time when you want to run small groups. I haven't started small groups yet because I want to be sure everyone knows how to use all of our stations ~ we are still in the practicing stage. I'm hoping that in another week (or two) we will be ready. I will also ask for parent volunteer once stations are fully up and running. But, for now I'm pretty happy with how things are going. I snapped some pictures of my little cuties working in our five current stations.

Listening ~ I have two iPods that I got through Donors Choose, two old-school discman type CD players, a "boom box," and two iPhone 4s that I found in my husband's office. For both the iPods & phones I put all the apps I didn't want the kids to mess around with into folders on "page 2." The only app that they see on "page 1" is the music app. It took a little while to get my books on CD onto my iTunes, but it was worth it because all of my stories are on all the devices. But, as you can see the kids don't mind old technology.

Games ~ this is a favorite station. I have lots of fun game-like activities as well as actual literacy games & puzzles. These little guys are playing with the Roll-a-Cube alphabet activity from my August/September Literacy Stations set.

More games ~ These boys are playing Oh no! ~ another alphabet activity from my literacy stations set. 

Tablets ~ this week was the first time we got out the tablets & the kids were pretty excited. Like listening, this is another station where everyone needs initial training: how to plug in headphones, adjusting volume, finding, opening, and closing apps. Most kids are pretty savvy with Mom's smart phone so they catch on pretty fast. I only allow kids to use the tablets (and computers) during literacy & math stations ~ no screens during playtime! They get more than enough screen time at home. I want them to use their imagination while playing.

Word Work ~ I know that it almost looks as if the little dark haired girl is crying, but she and her partners were working with rhyming cards. They made up a little guessing game. :-)

Writing ~ In addition to word cards, white boards, and writing paper our writing station currently has some small motor & alphabet activities. 

Other stations that we will add to our line up are Write the Room, Stamping, and Computers. I'll add Stamping or Write the Room this week. The kids need a few more sessions in the computer lab before I turn on the student computers. One thing I'm not going to include in our Literacy Stations rotations is "Read to Self." Over the years I've noticed that most Kinders (who really can't read much for a good part of the year anyway) aren't happy when they get Read to Self. They tend to get antsy and off task. They will have books in their book boxes and will be encouraged to "read" books when they are looking for something to do, but silent reading will not be part of our Literacy Stations. Click HERE for an interesting article on silent reading. 

Click HERE to purchase my Literacy Stations.

Back to School Giveaway!

It's almost time! Get ready for the new school year with a $10 Teachers pay Teachers gift card! I'll select a winner on Sunday at midnight & announced Monday morning. Good luck!




a Rafflecopter giveaway

Five for Friday

I can't believe that it's been nearly a month since my last post! Where did May go? Seriously! It seems like the month just started. I'm joining Doodle Bugs Teaching for her Five for Friday linky. So here it goes! (I know it's Saturday ~ I fell asleep while I was writing this post yesterday.)

Granddaughters! Everything that is said about grandchildren being the best is so true! I have so much fun with my little darlings.

Cousins! I am so happy that my granddaughter have so much fun together. My family moved to Indiana from West Virginia when I was a toddler, so I never got to hang out with my cousins. It's wonderful that these little girls are growing up together.

 Amelia says hello to Bob.

Sisters Isabella & Olivia have fun with cousin Amelia. We took a walk in the pasture on a sunny day in early May. 

Amelia's sweet baby sister Madelyn. This picture was taken several weeks ago ~ she's a sitting up baby now! Boy, time really does fly!

Our butterflies emerged this past week ~ the kids had so much fun watching them flutter around. Well, not this little guy. He came out with tiny, malformed wings & can't fly. Because of his little wings the kids called him Nemo. After a few days in the net the kids were concerned that the butterflies would knock themselves out hitting their heads on the net, so at their request we let them go. I thought we would be able to keep them for a few more days, but the kids were worried about them. We did keep little Nemo because he can't fly. I hope he can hold out another 7 more days of school, then I'll put it outside.

Pets! Over the years we have had lots and lots and lots of pets. We've had everything from cats & dogs to mice & rats, lizards & snakes, fish & frogs, rabbits & ferrets, birds, a guinea pig, horses, and for a short while we even had a goat! My girls love animals! We are "down" to Macie the chihuahua, and two house cats (Ella & Sweet Little Kitty), three horses, several barn cats, and "foster" German shepherd Vader. Wow! 

Macie & Ella are a couple of little beggers! They are always hanging around the kitchen looking for something to drop. :-)

Recently I broke out my second to last bottle of Spiedie Sauce to marinate some chicken. My husband is from Syracuse, NY and that's where I discovered this yummy marinade. I'm not sure if it's available anywhere besides New York, but you can get it online HERE. (I just have my in-laws send it to me since I can't get it in Indiana.) Cut chicken or pork into strips & marinate, put onto skewers & cook them on the grill. It's so delicious! 

With only seven days of school left I'm going to let my Kinders spend more time playing games & working in our literacy stations. They really love literacy stations! Here a couple of boys are sorting pictures by final sound. This is an activity from my May/June Literacy station set. You can get it separately or in my new growing bundle. January - May/June are done. I plan to finish it over the summer. Click HERE to purchase.