Tell All Tuesday Linky Party

Hey Friends!  It’s summer break and I am SUPER excited about it!  I’m linking up with Jayme from Teach Talk Inspire and Diana from My Day in K for a cute weekly linky.  It’s Tell All Tuesday, Y’all!  This week’s topic is to post about a current or past summer trip, activity, or enjoyable spot.  Here we go!

For the passed three or four years, my family has gone on summer vacations together.  Each trip is fun and unique in its own way, but my most favorite was our trip to Florida in 2012.  This trip was super fun, because fifteen of us rode the auto-train together.  We drove to Virginia, loaded our cars on the train, and headed straight for Florida. Have you ever heard of such a thing?  

This was my first time on a train ride.  I think the boys enjoyed it the most because they kept switching seats!

The train ride to Florida was an overnight trip.  We enjoyed dinner and breakfast on the ride.  It was really a true bonding experience for our family.

We stayed at Orange Lake Resort in Florida.  It’s absolutely beautiful!

During our stay, it rained almost everyday, but we still made the most of our time with bowling, shopping, eating, Disney, and more eating. Ha!

Of course, we had to have a day of dressing alike.  Guess who put that together?  LOL

What an great trip!  I love my family.

A Great Ending To A Great Year!

Hello Friends!  Happy Summer Break!  Since I’m finally settled into waking up late and being in my pjs all day, I wanted to share how I ended the year with my sweet kiddos.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a whole bunch of pics, but I will definitely share what I have. 

If you have been following our blog, you know that I am a big fan of themes in the classroom.  This year my theme was “Welcome to Hollywood!”  I must be honest and say that this is my favorite theme thus far.  Check out my Hollywood themed classroom HERE.

It was important that I incorporated our theme into our end of the year activities.  Soooooooo….we had a Walk of Fame Celebration.  I saw Reagan Tunstall from Tunstall’s Teaching Tidbits do this at the end of the year with her kiddos.  I just knew it was right up my alley.  Thanks so much, Reagan!  Our room was transformed with a red carpet and fun music.  I just used a huge piece of  red bulletin board paper for the “red carpet.”  I also used star cut-outs to add some pizzazz.

I was sure to invite parents in for this event.  They sat in the green chairs cheering on each kiddo as they walked down the “red carpet.”  Each guest wore a VIP pass.

Each child received an award after walking the red carpet.  I got my awards from Mel-D over at Seusstastic Classroom Inspirations.  They were ABSOLUTELY perfect!  There are so many  different awards in this pack.  I was able to give almost everyone in my class a different award.  Imagine how special my sweet kiddos felt!

I do a slide show of our year together on the last day of school.  Our Walk of Fame Celebration was a great time to do this.  After the slideshow, we had cookies and lemonade.

Oh, I almost forgot, each year I tie-dye t-shirts for my kiddos.  We took a class vote to decide what color the shirts should be.  I thought they came out great!  I bubble painted the student’s name and class number on each shirt.  We wore them on the last day of school.

My students also received a few special gifts.  The Hollywood pics were taken at the beginning of the year.  We also spent the last few weeks of school working on a time capsule from Hope King.  The Applicious Teacher also had a great end of the year keepsake on her blog.  Check it out!

These personalized cups were a huge hit!  I purchase vinyl from Amazon and put my Silhouette Cameo to work!

If you are thinking about doing a theme in your classroom, I would definitely suggest a Hollywood theme.  It’s super fun and easy!  Also, check out these few packs in our store that might help you with your décor.  I’ll be working on more Hollywood décor items this summer.

Have a fantastic Monday!

Fun End of the Year Activities

Hello Sweet friends!  Long time…no blogging.  Can I just say that life happened and our poor little blog took a back seat?  Now that school is out, I’m hoping I will be able to create and blog a bit more.  Is anyone else out of school yet?  I am so NOT used to being out in May and I am loving every bit of it.  I had a fantastic first year at my new school and I could not have asked for a better group of kiddos and parents to work with. 

Our last week together flew by so fast that it was a whirlwind.  I did manage to capture a few moments on camera so I wanted to share with you.

The Friday before Memorial Day weekend, we had Field Day. If you’re not familiar with Field Day, many schools have it at the end of the school year.  There are lots of outdoor activities for the kiddos to do while working on their teamwork and sportsmanship skills.

On Tuesday, we took a field trip to a metro park.  It threatened to rain so I wasn’t sure how the day was going to turn out.  It was absolutely beautiful!  We went on a nature walk.  Can you see those two adorable ducks?

  

We also had a class with an outstanding naturalist.

We had some “down time” too. The kiddos and chaperones enjoyed a pretty competitive bean bag game and they also got to play at the nearby playground after lunch.

On Wednesday, we visited the zoo. It was supposed to rain again, but it turned out to be another beautiful day.  The zoo just go a new African exhibit and we were all anxious to see it.  It was absolutely breath-taking!

The flamingos were pretty cool too!

I really enjoyed going on field trips during the last week.  I felt like I really got to spend some quality time with my kiddos before their big send off to third grade.I’ll save our last day festivities for another post.  What kinds of activities do you do with your students during the last week of school?

Is There A Doctor In The Room?

Hi there, Y’all! My kiddos and I did a little contraction surgery a few weeks back and I thought I would share.  I saw contraction surgery activities on Pinterest a lot last year and I knew I would have to try it.  It just looked so fun!  I did a two week unit on contractions so this was a great culminating activity.  I headed to good ole’ Wal-Mart to pick up my supplies:  gloves, masks, and band-aids.

The students were given words to use for the surgery.  They had to cut the letters to make a contraction.  Then they had to add a band-aid for the apostrophe.

My seconds worked in partners for this activity.

You couldn’t hear a pin drop as my kiddos performed surgery on these words.

I used the following resource from Sarah Moellering for this activity.  You can grab it here for free. It was just what I needed.  Thanks, Sarah!

This has to be one of the most engaging activities I have ever done.  I will definitely do this again next year when studying contractions.  It was so fun and a great way to see if students really understand contractions.

Healthy Food Choices and Preparation

Hi Everyone!  This post is definitely going to be more of showing with pics rather than telling in words.  Earlier this school year, my class won a celebration with Food Matters.  Food Matters is a program for kids that focuses on the taste, smell, and preparation of healthy foods. Two representatives from the Food Matters program came in and did a hands-on lesson devoted to healthy food choices and preparation. 

We started out by making some fresh salsa. 

Students had the opportunity to cut their own veggies with a plastic knife. The Food Matters teachers taught the students how to properly cut. There were tomatoes, cilantro, red onion, and lime.  Yummy!  Cilantro was a new food for some of my kiddos, but they were excited to try it.

Moving right along to the green smoothies.  A few of my seconds were a little skeptical about these, but they quickly found out that they were quite tasty.  Apple juice, spinach, and bananas were just a few of the ingredients used.

Finally, the students got to taste hummus with carrots.  Not really a favorite of my kiddos, but we all tried it.

Overall, this was a fantastic experience for my students.  Hopefully, they will try some of these recipes at home.  I know I will.

How do you integrate healthy foods into your classroom? I’d loved to hear.