No Excuses

It's been nearly two months since I've posted anything. I really don't have any excuses (reasons, maybe, but no real excuses). So, anyway I thought I'd take this lazy day to get caught up. We had a fun and festive Christmas. But, our house is super quiet today. It's a perfect time for getting caught up on my blog.

We spent a lot of time in the fall talking about characters and had fun dressing up as our favorite story book characters on Halloween. I am Lilly ~ complete with a purple plastic purse I made by covering a granola bar box with purple craft foam. It held three shiny quarters, but sadly didn't play music when I opened it. My teaching partners dressed up as George & Harold. (I didn't really need to tell you that, did I?)  The following pictures are of our fun at-home project. This is the first year we asked families to decorate pumpkins to look like their Kinders' favorite characters. It was optional ~ most of my kiddos brought in a pumpkin.

Here comes the bride! This is one reason I haven't blogged in a while. My youngest daughter got married in November. Needless to say we were busy. But, as you can see from the pictures our Cinderella themed wedding was a beautiful success!

 This has got to be one of my favorite photos of the day. It is truly magical.

 Gabrielle was a beautiful bride.

 More magical pics.

 My pretty family. My other girls were matrons of honor, their hubbies were groomsmen, and their darling daughters were adorable flower girls. I felt so glamorous in my black dress. (I did wonder if black was appropriate for the MOB, but Gabrielle approved it!)

 My pretty girls. Emily was very pregnant ~ she made it through the wedding! We were all very happy about that. :-)

 Adorable flower girls. The two older girls are Sarah's girls. The cutie in the middle is Emily's first.

 We had an usually warm November day. (It snowed the following weekend.) The little girls had fun frolicking around the backyard before heading to the church. I like the fancy dresses in front of horse fencing. Too bad the horses weren't in the pictures.

 OK ~ reason # 2 for me not posting. Not only did Madelyn not make her appearance during the wedding, she let us eat Thanksgiving dinner. But, she decided that we really didn't have to sleep off all of that turkey ~ Emily called us at 2:50 Friday morning to say that they were on the way to the hospital. We didn't mind missing a few hours of sleep. Amelia loves her baby sister!

These little girls LOVE each other! As a child all of my cousins were in West Virginia (we moved to Indiana when I was one), so I never got to see them. I always felt a little jealous of friends who got to hang out with their cousins. It is so wonderful seeing my little darling granddaughters have so much fun together. Everyone usually comes over Friday evenings. The craziness is so much fun!

OK ~ back to a little school stuff. We made these Rudolfs to hang on our hallway tree. My brilliant teaching assistant hot glued clothespins to the wall so changing out the art work is now a super simple task. I think these little guys turned out super cute!

 We participated in a school-wide hallway decorating theme. Each class chose a country and decorated their bulletin board in a way that represented Christmas traditions from that country. (I teach in a small rural school in a not very diverse area. As far as I know everyone celebrates Christmas.) We had USA and after some thought I decided that Charlie Brown Christmas is a beloved tradition so we made friends for Charlie Brown & Snoopy. (My amazing teaching assistant made the characters & doghouse.)

 Our December family craft was decorating little paper trees. I love them!

A parent of one of my teaching partners is a former teacher. She offered us the use of her amazing Polar Express decoration that her mother had made. The kids drew pictures of themselves for the windows. We have our Polar Express day on the last day before break. It's also the same day as our Christmas party. We wear PJs and have lots of Yuletide fun!

OK, I think I'm more or less caught up. I hope that I can do a better job of blogging in 2016!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Christmas vacation is finally here!  YAY!  Last week was lots of fun, but it felt sooooo long!  We did lots of crafts and had fun going around the world to learn about how Christmas and other holidays are celebrated using Caitlin Clabby's fun Holidays Around the World.  The week ended with Polar Express Day ~ we watched the movie, wore PJs, and had a fun Christmas party.  Boy, was I ready for a break by the end of the week!

 Every class decorated their bulletin board like a different Christmas carol.  We did "Oh, Christmas Tree!"  We made the little trees and snowflakes in class.  The ornaments on the big tree were made at home.  I like to have the kids do an at-home family project ~ it's fun to see what they make!

We made frame-worthy art work for our parent gifts.  I like to have the kids make something from scratch (not a kit) whenever possible.  These pretty winter scenes took a few days to make.  First, they painted the background using a mix of blue & white paint.  Next, they traced and cut out trees.  Once the trees were in place, they used Q-tips to paint snowflakes.  Finally, silver glitter was glued in swirls to create frosty winter winds.  

Chippy the Elf watched over the class all December.  Here, he is sitting in a little sleigh that one of my students made for me.  The kids were amazed that the sleigh was in a different place that day!

 Craft Day with our third grade book buddies!  The Kinders had so much fun creating these cute reindeer with the big kids.  And, the big kids liked being able to help their little buddies.

Not exactly Christmas ~ but, getting six new tablets for our classroom certainly felt like Christmas!  Every kindergarten class in our district got six HP tablets for use in our classrooms!  

Bulletin Boards

I wish I had thought to take pictures of my bulletin boards sooner.  We had some really cute displays earlier in the year.

"The stockings were hung by the chimney with care..." My kinders made stockings (complete with TONS of glitter) to hang on our fireplace.  Ours was the only classroom to feature a pink Christmas tree! 

Winter Street Scenes.

This is our hallway bulletin board.  I used my Cricut to make the Let it Snow sign and bird.  The kids did the rest, cutting shapes to make buildings and using sponges to paint snow.   I love the way they look together in a group!  The lights were left over from our Christmas Gingerbread Friends display.  (I really wish I had taken a picture...)